E GARDEI 






. /:|:t'f^::;;:.;.:;;:;:;:;: :; 






'^ ^<' f 









■■%^-H''^^* ?i#-.'. ^%>«i*-' MR*?E^ M ^ 



V \ ^i:'' 



S'fea^ 






.4i-^liB3Prm"^llF 



AND 




Class 
Book 



SS^i 



\ — > 



pyright]^^. 



COPYRIGKT DEPOSm 



/ 



THE GARDEN PRIMER 




There is not a corner on the face of the earth where with 

soil, sunshine, seed, sinew and sprinkling, one may not 

have some sort of a garden of growing things 



THE 
GARDEN PRIMER 

A PRACTICAL HANDBOOK ON THE 

ELEMENTS OF GARDENING 

FOR BEGINNERS 

BY 

GRACE TABOR 

'^ AND 

GARDNER TEALL 




NEW YORK 

McBRIDE. WINSTON & CO. 

1910 



COPYRIGHT 19 10, BY 
McBRIDE, WINSTON & COMPANY 






P^ 



^"k 



CI.A261851 



TO 

THE garden's apprentices, 

THAT THEY MAY SERVE JOYOUSLY AND WELL, 

THE AUTHORS DEDICATE 

THIS LITTLE BOOK 



PREFACE 

IT is the purpose of this little book to set forth 
in the most direct form, but without technical- 
ities, the fundamental principles of amateur gardening 
in America. Unlike the greater number of the volumes 
one finds in garden literature it presupposes no knowl- 
edge of the subject, rather aiming to satisfy those who 
now for the first time wish to know how to make things 
grow, and are in need of a trustworthy guide to going 
about it. The tables included have been prepared 
with the greatest care, and the entire matter appear- 
ing herein should prove applicable to conditions 
throughout every state. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER 
I 

II 

III 

IV 

V 

VI 

VII 

VIII 

IX 

X 

XI 

XII 

XIII 

XIV 

XV 

XVI 

XVII 

XVIII 

XVIX 



PAGB 

INTRODUCTION I 

SORTS OF PLANTS 3 

THE SOIL 7 

NOMENCLATURE II 

SEEDS AND SOWING 15 

SEEDLINGS AND TRANSPLANTING 21 

PLANTS AND CULTIVATION 25 

FERTILIZING AND FERTILIZERS 29 

PRUNING 37 

HOTBEDS AND COLDFRAMES 45 

GARDEN PESTS AND SPRAYING 53 

GARDEN TOOLS AND CULTIVATION 6 1 

THE FLOWER GARDEN 63 

FLOWER PLANTING TABLE 68 

THE VEGETABLE GARDEN 71 

VEGETABLE PLANTING TABLE 74 

THE gardener's KALENDAR 79 

TABLE OF SPRAYENG FOR GARDEN PESTS . 1 1 2 
INDEX 115 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING PAGE 

There is not a comer on the face of the earth 
where with soil, sunshine, seed, sinew and 
sprinkling, one may not have some sort of 

a garden of growing things Frontispiece 

The making of a garden opens to every man a vista 

of the delight of growing lovely things i ^ 

Flats should be filled with one part garden loam 

to one part leaf-mold i6- 

After sowing seeds in flats i6 

Watering the flats 17 

Firming the soil of flats 17 

The workshop of a garden beginner.. 20^^ 

Indoor sowing apparatus. 21 

A flat of seedlings 22, 

Growing salad seedlings in a flat 22 

Melon seedlings grown in a strawberry-box 23 

Melon seedlings five weeks after sowing 23 

Thinning out the plants from hotbeds and coldframes 28 

A garden on a pile of rocks 29 

The rewards of careful cultivation 32 

Redeeming a neglected comer.. 33 

Seeded garden-beds 36 

Well-pruned trees 37 



PACING PAGE 

Manner of priming shrub-branches 42 

Pruned Geranium plant 43 

Combination of good and bad pruning 44, 

The permanent hotbed 45 

Hotbed soil 45 

The garden beginner's work-bench 48 

Marking off planting rows 49 

Knapsack pump-sprayer 56 

Spraying outfit 56 

Hollyhocks 57 

Barrel pump-sprayer 60 . 

The gardener's friends 61 

Making the back-yard attractive 64 

A well-kept border of annuals 65 

A neat vegetable garden 71 

An old-fashioned garden 80 

Beautifying the walls 8i 

Everyone may have such a garden as this 81 

DRAV^INGS 

PAGB 

Cross section of hotbed 46 

Hotbed frame 47 

Usual form of coldframe 50 

Coldframe with double sash 51 

Types of chewing insects 55 

Types of sucking insects 55 

Bucket hand-sprayer 57 

Knapsack hand-sprayer 57 



THE GARDEN PRIMER 




The making of a garden opens to every man a vista of 

the delights of growing lovely living things, of 

watching them from the time of seeding 

until they unfold in marvelous 

maturity of flower and fruit 



INTRODUCTORY 

MAKING a garden is not the formidable thing it 
is often supposed to be, nor caring for it when 
once it is made half so arduous as many suppose it is. 
Faithfulness to it, from beginning to end, makes it a 
joy to everyone as well as a profit. 

No matter how small a plot of earth is at one's 
command, whether it be four square feet or four acres, 
Mother Nature, aided by man's ingenuity, has growing 
things that will thrive in it. The thing to do is to 
find out which of the plants you like and need will 
grow in the space you have available for them, and 
then learn when to plant them and how to care for 
them and for the soil that is to nourish them when 
once they are planted, until the happy day when they 
will have reached their maturity, and you will have 
had the satisfaction of giving an assuring answer to 
the old-time question of "How does your garden 
grow?" 

The first step towards garden-making should be 
with tapeline and a piece of paper. Measure up the 
space that is to be devoted to growing things and draw 



THE GARDEN PRIMER 



a plan of it to scale on a sheet of heavy paper, loca- 
ting thereon the position of the house, outbuildings, 
existing trees, shrubs, walks and all other features that 
must be taken into consideration in the planting 
scheme. Even if you are merely intending to have a 
border of flowers around the base of your house, sketch 
the outline of the building on paper as accurately to 
measure as possible; or, better still, hunt up the archi- 
tect's working plan and trace its outline to scale. There 
is an excellent reason for this; growing things should 
always be considered in their connection with their 
environment, just as in their wild state they are con- 
sidered as features of the landscape, against hillside, 
bordering ponds and rivers, fringing streams, carpeting 
meadows, and so on. So no matter how simple a plot 
you are planning to plant, a strip of shrubbery ten 
feet long by three broad may be all wrong if selected 
and planted without due regard for its place in the 
whole scheme of the premises. Likewise with a flower- 
bed (though we may concede to the necessities of the 
vegetable patch; only even there one has as good a 
chance to make the plants as attractive, in a measure, 
as in the Rose garden). 

When you have planned your garden on paper 
and planting time approaches heed the warning not to 
rush into a seed-store, or a nurseryman's to buy a 
packet of every seed that has an attractive name, to take 
home and scatter about recklessly with over-enthusiastic 
faith that you have done all that is necessary to ensure 
a garden. Successful gardens are not made that way. 



n 

SORTS OF PLANTS 

HARDY PERENNIALS are plants that with- 
stand the winter in the ground and live for 
years, often indefinitely. They form increasingly large 
clumps which may be divided from time to time to make 
new plants, and these may be transplanted as desired, 
usually in the fall. Perennials may also be raised from 
seed planted in the spring or in late summer and will 
bloom the following season. Hardy Perennials include 
Trees, Shrubs and Herbs, and do not require a winter 
covering. 

Hardy Annuals are plants that are sown from seed 
in the spring, last through several months of summer, 
and then die. The seeds may be sown in the open 
ground in April or in May, or under glass frames or in 
flat boxes indoors in late February or March. 

Hardy Biennials are sown one year, bloom the 
next year, and then die. These should have a light 
winter protection of straw, or leaves held down with 
brush. The seeds are sown the same as annuals. 

Half-hardy Perennials and half-hardy bien- 
nials are usually started under glass, but may be sown 



THE GARDEN PRIMER 



in the open ground after May 15th. They require 
winter covering. 

Half-hardy Annuals are to be treated in much 
the same way as tender annuals, requiring, as they do, 
the full time of a long summer in which to develop. 
They should not be sown out of doors until after June 
ist. 

Tender Perennials require still more care in 
starting them. Sow under glass and do not transplant 
to the open ground until after May 15th. 

Tender Biennials may be treated as tender 
perennials. 

Tender Annuals are sown under glass in early 
spring and the seedlings protected from both excessive 
sun and cold. They are transplanted from flats to 
pots or boxes and finally set out after May 25th, by 
which time they are well grown. 

Self-sowing plants are those which perpetuate 
themselves through the seed which they drop upon the 
ground around them. They cannot be depended on 
to come up in just the right place, but they may usually 
be transplanted. Poppies, however, are among those 
self-sowing plants which do not survive transplanting 
and therefore must be weeded out or allowed to remain 
where they spring up. 

Shrubs and Trees are woody stemmed plants 
which differ very little, actually, from each other. 
Usually a shrub has many branches which start at the 
ground, while a tree has a single trunk. This is not 
uniformly true of either, however, and there is really 



SORTS OF PLANTS 



no arbitrary distinction; a small tree is called a tree- 
like shrub, while a shrub attaining to 30 feet in height 
is referred to under the same term. The line between 
the two cannot be sharply defined. 

Climbers are plants of weak stems, sometimes 
tall and sometimes low growing, which cannot lift 
themselves without the aid of some support. They 
may be in any one of the classes mentioned above and 
they may have woody or juicy stems. Those which 
twine aroimd their support are, strictly speaking, 
vines; climbers raise themselves by means of trendrils, 
aerial rootlets or some special device provided for the 
purpose. Thus all vines are climbers, but all climb- 
ers are not vines. Nurserymen commonly mean tall 
growing plants when they use the term climber; lower 
growing kinds they define as trailers. 

A difference of a single degree of latitude has a 
marked effect on many plants, though it is not distance 
north or south alone that tells. Some regions, for 
instance, from their topographical peculiarities, may be 
particularly adapted to the growth of certain things 
which ordinarily would not be hardy in that latitude; 
while possibly other localities further south are unfavor- 
able by reason of their configuration to the cultivation 
of even lustier species. Altitude enters into the matter 
to a certain degree, likewise the texture of the soil, the 
proximity of large bodies of water and the direction of 
the prevailing winter winds. 

The knowledge that all perennials are not as easily 
raised from seed as most annuals, and that the latter 



THE GARDEN PRIMER 



produce an immediate effect instead of delaying a 
season, makes the latter more popular in one sense. 
No garden is complete without both, however, though 
the beginner will do well to undertake only a few of 
either and those of the simplest and easiest culture. 

Of course it is apparent that under suitable 
climatic conditions the tenderest annual in the world 
might be perennial that is, it might live indefinitely 
from year to year, from either root or self-sown seed; 
while it is equally apparent that the hardiest perennial 
of a North American garden would be only an annual 
if carried sufficiently far north from its native habitat. 

Having thus briefly learned the sorts of plants and 
the character of their longevity, and having decided 
what you wish to plant and where to plant it, the next 
problem that confronts the garden beginner is the 
preparation of the soil of the beds that are to receive 
the plants. Therefore it is requisite that he should 
have some knowledge of the soil. 



ni 

THE SOIL 

ONE thing essential to a garden, and without 
which there can hardly be a garden, is proper 
soil. It is not necessary that the beginner should go 
into an exhaustive study of the subject, but a general 
acquaintance with the physical characteristics at least 
of the various kinds of soil, is imperative. Nothing 
can make up for a lack of understanding of this. 

In the first place soil is classified in three ways: 
firsty according to its origin, which means according to 
the rock from which it was derived — whether from 
limestone, sandstone, or from granitic formations, for 
example; second, according to its chemical properties — 
whether calcareous, alkaline and so on; third, accord- 
ing to its physical or mechanical properties — whether 
dry, moist, stony, gravelly, clayey, sandy or loamy. 

But for the present we will overlook the first two 
classifications, giving attention to the third only, i. e, 
the mechanical or physical properties. 

Soil is made up of particles of broken-down rock 
combined with decomposed organic (or living) matter. 
The size of these particles, their relation to each other, 



THE GARDEN PRIMER 



the proportion between them and the air and water 
which they retain in the infinitesimal crevices separat- 
ing them — these are the things which govern the phys- 
ical characteristics and the soil texture; these, clearly 
understood, make it possible for anyone to follow a 
line of common-sense reasoning and arrive at the right 
thing to do to put any soil in the condition most favor- 
able for supporting vegetation. For soil may be 
modified almost as one chooses, especially within the 
area one has at his disposal on the average home 
grounds. 

Deep soil means that having a depth of at least 
eight inches from the surface to the less productive 
sub-soil. 

Light soil is a term that has nothing to do with 
the actual weight, but means loose or sandy — open 
textured, the contrary to Heavy Soil. 

Loam is a soil in which the sand, silt and clay are 
properly balanced, making it mellow and friable. This 
is the ideal soil most generally favorable to plant life 
because, being a combination of sand and clay — of 
large and small soil particles — in about equal propor- 
tions, it retains moisture in sufficient quantity to sup- 
ply plant food in solution, and at the same time it is 
properly aerated. Air is an important factor in soil 
and needed by the roots of plants quite as much as 
water. 

The first thing toward actual garden making for 
the beginner to do, therefore, is to determine which 
side of the balance between sand and clay is over- 

8 



THE SOIL 

weighted in the soil with which he has to deal, and how 
much it is overweighted; there is a simple test which 
will show, approximately and near enough. 

How To Test the Soil 

Go out into the garden or onto the ground where 
the garden is to be, and turn up a spadeful of earth 
there three days after there has been a rainfall. Is 
it powdery and light ? Then sand predominates — and 
when sand predominates organic matter is what is 
needed to bind the particles together. Is it sticky and 
like putty, retaining the imprint of your fingers ? That 
means a lack of sand, with correspondingly too much 
clay; so it is sand or some loosening agent that is the 
thing required. 

Ordinary manure is as good as anything you can get 
for supplying the needs of a too sandy soil, while deep 
plowing, which gives the water a chance to escape from 
clay, is often all that an ordinarily heavy soil that has 
lain unworked, requires to make it into a friable loam. 
If this does not lighten it enough, however, a dressing 
of lime should follow. 

Begin your garden by doing this work with the 
soil. The weathering of it during a winter will help 
greatly, for the action of the frost and sun has a 
decided physical effect that should be taken advantage 
of whenever possible. With a spring beginning there 
is no time for these to do their portion of the work — 
but with a start made in the fall there are from six 



THE GARDEN PRIMER 



to seven months ahead, during which the elements 
may have free rein. Turning up the ground in 
autumn is indeed sometimes recommended, even in 
old and established gardens, though this should not 
be done when the soil is wet. 

With outdoors looked after, pay particular atten- 
tion to all that the catalogues and garden literature have 
to say about soil. You know what they mean when 
they talk about sandy loam, or clay loam, or just plain 
loam, and you know which yours is. What have they 
to say about your particular kind? Never mind if 
they do not agree with each other or with what may be 
said herein; read them. You will find something to 
think about — ^you'll get ideas — and you will begin to 
appreciate how much there is of interest about this very 
common, ordinary dirt imder our feet that we have 
always taken for granted. Our very lives depend upon 
it, literally. Isn't it worth studying a little bit ? 



ID 



NOMENCLATURE 

AT first, plant nomenclature, that is, the name 
classification of plants, may appear a staggering 
proposition, — but do not become discouraged with the 
names you feel you have to familiarize yourself with 
as you come to look over the seed catalogues and 
delve into garden literature. It is not half so bad as 
it really looks, nor as it sounds when one is begin- 
ning to pronounce the long and often unfamiliar plant 
names. 

Indeed, your enjoyment of every growing thing will 
be very much keener if you make its acquaintance under 
its own true name instead of under some dubious nick- 
name which may or may not fit. The true botanical 
name has been bestowed upon it for some definite reason 
by those who knew what they were about. It fits — 
and it means something. Learn it; pronounce it in 
sections, just the way it is spelled; nine times out of 
ten you will have it right — and the tenth is not going 
to matter at first. 

Of course no one in his right mind will speak of 
familiar flowers under their Latin names in ordinary 
conversation. That is not why one is urged to learn 

II 



THE GARDEN PRIMER 



them; but there are very many things which we akeady 
know commonly under their true names. Why not 
know all of them? By doing so you will find yourself 
able to trace relationships among plants and plant 
families which you have never dreamed of. 

There is, for example, the gigantic yet delicately 
lovely moonflower which blossoms only in the even- 
ing, the ever alluring morning-glory which opens with 
the sunrise, and the lacy foliaged cypress vine which 
bears its tiny, starry flowers all day, the same as other 
plants — all members of a family named Ipomoea, 
and all sharing a peculiar family idiosyncrasy in the 
shape of a toughened seed which must be soaked or 
filed before planting, in order to promote free germi- 
nation. This is a very extensive family by the way, 
comprising something over three hundred members 
living in all parts of the world, each bearing a dis- 
tinctly traceable resemblance to its kin. 

Perhaps it will help you to understand the matter 
better if you compare the name of the plant with the 
name of a person, and fix in your mind the likeness 
between them. For instance, a certain individual is 
a Brown, let us say, a comparison to a certain plant 
being a phlox. That is the generic or family name. 
But which Brown is he? Why, John Brown, to 
be sure (or perhaps James Brown), that is the same as 
a Phlox being phlox decussata (or perhaps phlox Drum- 
mondiijy only with the plants the names are reversed 
you see, as we find the Browns in the directory reading 
* 'Brown, John," but it means just the same as John 

12 



NOMENCLATURE 



Brown. Now with the Phlox, decussata and likewise 
Drummondii are the species names, corresponding to 
the baptismal or christian name of a person. However, 
the identity is not yet sufficiently clear, as there may be 
several John Browns; which one are we talking about? 
John Brown the lawyer, perhaps, or maybe John 
Brown the doctor, and that is the same as phlox 
decussata, independence, or, again, phlox Drummondii, 
stellata, these third names indicating the variety 
and thus establishing beyond a doubt the particular 
Phlox we have in mind, just as John Brown the lawyer 
establishes the identity of the particular Brown we 
have in mind. 

You will find family, species and variety all spelled 
with both capital and small initial letters. This is 
perfectly right though it may look queer. The rule 
is that capitals are only used when a proper name 
furnished the foundation for the plant name — phlox 
Drummondii for instance is a Phlox originated by a 
man named Drummond — while small letters are used 
at all other times. Unfortunately many are not as 
careful in this respect as they ought to be and mis- 
takes are rather common. 

There are, of course, many more divisions of plants 
than the three here given, but the others are of interest 
and importance to the botanist only. The practical 
gardener is not keen about marshalling great families 
into still greater classes, or clans and cohorts, and these 
again into some still larger group, with a more compre- 
hensive title — and all things considered, it is probably 

13 



THE GARDEN PRIMER 



fortunate that this is so. One cannot but feel that the 
garden would suffer if it were otherwise, for the subject 
is absorbing, once it is undertaken — and proportionately 
exacting in the matter of time. 

Common or popular names vary in different parts 
of the country so greatly that they are absolutely unre- 
liable. Botanical names, on the contrary, are as fixed 
as the laws of the Medes and Persians, they come easy, 
once you get started, and you can order the thing 
you want from almost any dealer under the sun and 
be sure you are getting it right. 



14 



SEEDS AND SOWING 

AS there can be no successful garden without proper 
knowledge of the soil, neither can there be a 
good garden without some knowledge of seeds. The 
gardener can never hope to know in a lifetime as 
much about these tiny mysteries as a little honest 
attention will teach him about dirt ; still there is much 
to learn; much that may be learned and a little that 
must. Let us take this last — this necessity — first into 
consideration. 

In planting seeds the inexperienced usually err 
on the side of thoroughness, burying them beneath a 
weight of earth that promptly smothers all their aspira- 
tions. There is a certain amount of energy stored 
in a seed — enough to reproduce the plant from which 
it came — but not enough to do more than this, to 
move many times its own weight of earth aside in 
order to do its work. Hopelessly they give up the 
ghost and go the way of all dead things, instead of 
the way of the living — and the gardener grumbles, 
when he has only himself to blame. 

15 



THE GARDEN PRIMER 



The earth-covering should never be deeper than 
five times, and usually not more than three times, a 
seed's greatest diameter, when planting out of doors. 

In frames or flats (shallow boxes) indoors a cover- 
ing equal to the seed's own diameter is sufficient, be- 
cause in the latter situations the moisture and tempera- 
ture can be artificially regulated. The greater depth 
out of doors is simply to insure against drying out and 
chilling the seeds where there is no means of governing 
these factors. 

Whether you are going to plant indoors or out, 
water the soil where the seeds are to go thoroughly the 
day before putting them in. This will bring it to just 
the right degree of mellowness at the time of sowing. 

Seeds go into the ground in driUs (as do Sweet 
Peas), in hills (as do Melons), singly — that is in con- 
tinuous rows or in clusters, one at a time — or scattered 
like grass (as do Poppies and Petunias), according to 
the plant which they will produce. The packet in 
which each variety comes has printed upon it the 
method to be followed with the seed enclosed; so that 
part of it is easy, as these directions are usually 
reliable — always so with first-class seedsmen. 

If you have seeds to sow in drills, lay a board down 
upon the proposed bed or wherever the seeds are to go, 
for a "ruler," draw a line along its edge with a pointed 
stake for a "pencil," dragging it deep into the soil or 
lightly along its surface according to the depth of drill 
the diameter of the seed demands ; scatter the seeds into 
this little trough and brush the earth that was pushed 

i6 




Flats should be filled with one part garden loam to one part leaf- 
mold, and enough sand added so that the mixture will 
crumble apart after being squeezed in the hand 




After sowing the seed either in rows or broadcast, sift over them 

enough fine soil to cover them to a depth of two or 

three times their diameter 




In watering the flats cover the soil with burlap 
to prevent washing out the seeds 




After sifting the soli covering over the seeds press the whole area 

firmly with a flat board. A shingle will do, but you can 

easily make a firming board like this 



SEEDS AND SOWING 



out of it, back over them. Then pat it lightly down 
with a float — a "flatiron" contrivance of wood, 6x9 
inches or thereabouts and an inch or two thick, with a 
small piece nailed upon its upper side for a handle. It 
can be made of any old pieces of wood that happen to 
be available. 

Seeds sown singly in rows should have the same 
long drills marked for them, the seeds themselves being 
dropped in at regular intervals instead of continuously. 
Hills are just shallow, saucer-shaped depressions into 
which the requisite number of seeds are dropped, sep- 
arated so that they will not touch each other. The 
earth is drawn over them and as the seedlings shoot 
up, gaining in height, more earth is drawn up from the 
sides until the hill is formed which supports the little 
plants and deepens their roots. 

Scattered or broadcast sowing is like the sifting 
of pepper from a shaker, and the earth over the seeds 
is sifted on in the same light fashion if any at all is 
used to cover them. Usually seeds that are scattered 
are simply firmed into the ground by pressing with 
the float, the idea being always to bring the grains of 
soil close against the seed on every side, keeping it 
evenly moist by capillary action and allowing no irreg- 
ular spaces for air to intervene and shut off this mois- 
ture. Air is essential, to be sure, but not an excess of 
it on one side and none on the other. 

The beginner is apt, however, to give an excess of 
water rather than of air. Many a garden has been 
drowned under a simple faith that it is being thor- 

17 



THE GARDEN PRIMER 



oughly watered. The amount of water a garden re- 
quires is just enough to maintain the soil at a condi- 
tion of slowly crumbling apart in the hand after being 
squeezed — and this proportion should be constantly 
maintained. Too dry a soil or a soil that is too wet 
even, is not so bad as the alternations between the 
two extremes which careless gardening permits. 

Seeds vary greatly in the time required for germina- 
tion. Some sprout as soon as the earth closes around 
them, seemingly, while others lie dormant for so long 
that the novice at last gives up hope, growing so thor- 
oughly resigned to his disappointment that he forgets 
them completely, when lo ! Up comes the living green 
one day, quite a year perhaps, from the planting time. 

But happily such procrastination is found only 
among the slow growing plants, with which the beginner 
is seldom tempted to experiment — the perennials which 
furnish our trees and shrubs and hardiest vegetation 
generally. Flowers and vegetables ordinarily spring 
quickly into activity, in a very satisfactory and obliging 
manner, rewarding the beginner's labors usually within 
a fortnight — sometimes much sooner. 

So much for the practical details of seed handling; 
and now for one or two things about seeds themselves 
that ought to be understood — and that are interesting 
to know. 

A seed is the case in which, carefully folded and 
ingeniously packed away, lies an embryonic plant, with 
the food necessary to sustain it for a certain period of 
its life above ground. In some seeds this plant is 

i8 



SEEDS AND SOWING 



developed enough for microscopic dissection to reveal 
it plainly, in others it is very rudimentary. 

Usually it has two plump divisions called cotyle- 
dons — four syllables cot-y-le-dons , with the accent on 
the first ; there are, however, plants which have more or 
only one, but they will come later — and these, if they 
push their way up through the earth — some do not — 
spread apart and look to us like leaves. Consequently 
we usually speak of them as the first or seed leaves, 
although they aren't leaves at all. It is between them 
and protected by them that the actual growing point of 
the plant waits, — the plumule or true leaf-bud whence 
the real plant is to arise, with the plant's true leaves. 

The cotyledons are only caretakers — the nurse- 
maids of the baby plant itself — ^which feed and guard it 
until it has grown big enough to draw its own susten- 
ance, through its true leaves and the little roots that 
have been keeping pace underground with the leaves' 
growth, from the elements about. Until a true leaf is 
formed, every plant lives on the food stored away with 
it in the seed, no matter how miscroscopic that seed 
may be. 

Not imtil the true leaves have developed, generally 
speaking, are seedlings strong enough to bear handling 
and transplanting. Some of your seed packets will tell 
you to transplant when the third leaf appears, or to thin 
out when the true leaves appear, which means of course 
the third leaf after the cotyledons in the first instance, 
the first pair of leaves in the second — for sometimes the 
true leaves appear in pairs, opposite on their stalk, 

19 



THE GARDEN PRIMER 



while others come out singly, one on one side, the next 
on the other. Always follow such directions carefully 
and do not anticipate nor wait beyond the stipulated 
time. 

Once you have watched a seedling — any seedling — 
through its rudimentary growth from funny, round 
or oval, sturdy little cotyledons to two or three true 
leaves and noted the marked difference in the appear- 
ance of the latter from the former, you will wonder 
why you never noticed it before — if you have not. 
Seed germination is one of the most interesting things 
in this very interesting world, though it is common — 
almost as common as the dirt. 



20 




Here is the workshop of a garden beginner 

who has learned that everything in 

the place for it saves time and 

and makes gardening half 

as easy again 




Here we see Flats, Soil-sifter, and Watering- 
can all readyfor the garden beginner who 
would experiment with raising plants 
indoors to set out later 



VT 

SEEDLINGS AND TRANSPLANTING 

SEEDLINGS are little plants just from the seed 
raised indoors or out, wherever convenient. Their 
removal to better places — the process of transplanting— 
is a part of gardening extremely important for the 
garden beginner to understand, inasmuch as he may 
often make almost his entire garden this way, on the 
first season, buying seedlings from a florist if he has 
been late in making a start with garden operations. 

The soil into which seedlings are to be moved from 
their seed bed should be in about the same condition, 
as regards moisture, as the soil in which seeds are 
sown — that is, as moist as a previous day's watering 
will make it. And the soil from which they are taken 
will, of course, be about the same, and will yield their 
roots readily, without tearing. 

At this stage of operations comes in the dihhle — 
a most useful affair which, thrust an inch or so into 
the earth half an inch from the seedling, is twisted and 
worked and tilted this way and that gently until the 
soil is loosened enough to let the little plant be picked 
lightly from it. For very tiny plantlets a toothpick 

21 



THE GARDEN PRIMER 



makes as good a dibble as may be had, but there are 
occasions when a section of broom handle, sharpened 
like a long pointed pencil, is not a bit too big. A little 
practice with the tool will quickly teach you the size 
appropriate for any particular plant. 

Lift the seedling by taking one of its leaves care- 
fully between the soft ball of the thumb and index 
finger — ^you will be surprised at the ease with which you 
will handle mere atoms of plants this way — not touch- 
ing the body of the plant at all, nor allowing its roots 
to come in contact with anything. 

Thrust the dibble into the earth at the spot the 
plant is to occupy, making a hole as deep or a little 
deeper than its longest root; lower the seedling into 
this hole until it is as deep as it originally grew, then 
thrust the dibble down once more, half an inch from it 
this time, and by tilting the handle over towards it 
gently press earth against and around its roots. If 
the hole seems insufficiently filled after this, leaving 
the plant unsteady and loosely set, thrust the dibble 
down at another spot or lay its point flat onto the soil, — 
alongside the plant's stem and press down until the 
earth falls into place, filling the hole completely. Do 
not pack the dirt, but make it firm. 

Water moderately after the work is finished, unless 
the sun shines on the plants; this will help to carry 
the earth close around the roots, settling it and pressing 
out the air pockets. 

With seedlings alv/ays be particular about obtaining 
them in a fresh condition from your florist if you have 

22 




A Flat of Seedlings ready to be pricked off 
and transplanted 




Growing Salad Seedlings in a Flat placed by 
the window to receive the sunlight 




Melon seedlings that have been 
started indoors in a straw- 
berry box 




Five weeks after seeding these melon plants 
are ready for setting out 



SEEDLINGS AND TRANSPLANTING 

not yourself grown them from seed. It is not wise to 
set out sun-wearied plantlets that have been taken up 
from their beds and allowed to stand for hours without 
proper care and protection. Seedlings once removed 
are tender things until they find themselves at home in 
their new environment, and make a fresh start by 
taking hold upon the soil that has adopted them. 

Short and stocky plants transplant always with 
better results than those of tall, thin and "spindling" 
growth, and this sturdiness should always be the guide 
in making a selection from commercial stock. Where 
seedlings are being raised by the beginner, let him bear 
in mind that a plant which is frequently transplanted 
endures the operation with much more grace than one 
which is left long in one place. Frequent transplanting 
tends to the development of a more compact root 
system which will be made up of many fine and hair- 
like short feeding roots instead of the long, tenacious 
growth which the undisturbed plant is able to put forth 
— and naturally the former are less liable to injury and 
breakage when lifted than the latter. 

There are probably no plants which cannot be 
transplanted by a skilled operator, but there are many 
which certainly will not tolerate the treatment of any 
but an expert — and some that even the expert shrinks 
from handling. Usually these are species or varieties 
which send straight down, deep into the earth, a long, 
trunk-like root which is called a tap-root. This 
simply will not yield to removal without breakage. 

23 



THE GARDEN PRIMER 



Whenever the instructions on a seed packet direct 
that the seed be sown where it is wanted in the garden, 
and say nothing about transplanting, it is very likely 
that the plant is one of those which puts forth such a 
root — and the direction should be literally followed, else 
there will be failure. 

Good-sized, growing plants with a mass of roots 
large enough to need some earth removed to make 
room to set them, may be firmed into place by filling 
with water, gently poured, a depression left around their 
crown. After this has settled, the rest of the earth is 
thrown into place — and thus the whole operation is 
accomplished with comparatively no violence or shock 
to even the tenderest rootlets. 



24 



vn 

PLANTS AND CULTIVATION 

WHEN plants have reached maturity or approach itj 
whether flower, fruit or vegetable, watch them 
closely and do not withdraw constant care from them. 
Volumes written about them could not cover, compre- 
hensively, all their httle queemesses and strange freaks. 
Each one seems almost a problem by itself, sprung 
up from the ground to show some new phase of 
Mother Nature's ingenuity, and each gardener must 
learn by his own experience how to meet the par- 
ticular emergencies arising from the combination of 
soil, weather and plant with which he has to deal. 

But while maturing plants differ in their require- 
ments greatly and each must be studied by itself, there 
is one thing that is appreciated by all alike, and that is 
tillage. The man with the hoe, and the rake, and the 
cultivator, is the being they hail as friend, be sure of 
that. Indeed this stirring of the soil is so great a benefit 
that one of the most ancient garden maxims says 
"tillage is manure." 

It is not alone to keep the weeds down, however, 
that this stirring of the surface must be kept up, 
surprising as it may seem and contrary to popular 

25 



THE GARDEN PRIMER 



notions. Incidentally it does prevent them from 
gaining a foothold of course, but its great merit lies in 
its action on the soil itself. 

Moisture is carried through soil by capillary attrac- 
tion. When rain or dew falls on the ground it penetrates 
to plant roots by means of this action, going down and 
down until it is equalized in the soil or finds a way 
through into still deeper fissures and drains out into 
rivers or sp ings. 

With the coming of fair weather after a rain, how- 
ever, this downward action is immediately reversed 
on the surface, where the water particles first yield 
themselves to the air and heat of the sun and pass from 
the ground completely. Gradually the pull upward 
of this same capillary force draws the fluid from deeper 
down until all that the thirsty earth has absorbed is 
relentlessly taken from it and scattered in the air again 
as vapor. 

But tillage is the interrupter of this robbery of the 
sun. It interposes a little, thin blanket of soil particles 
which are too widely separated from each other for 
capillary pull to be efficacious, and the soil beneath it is 
thus enabled to retain the precious drops for a much 
longer period, even in decided drought. 

Then, too, this finely pulverized, blanketing soil 
absorbs moisture more readily than a hard-baked, 
unstirred surface, and even the light precipitation of 
dew, night after night, is greedily drunk by it. 

So the importance of tilling rests not in its merit 
as a weed eradicator, you see. But happily it does 

26 



PLANTS AND CULTIVATION 



eradicate them thoroughly — for weeds are gluttons and 
by virtue of this spirit in them are able to take the best 
of everything from a piece of ground, starving out its 
rightful tenants. 

Go over a garden — or a bed, or whatever you are 
tending — at least twice a week with this gentle surface 
"scratching." That is all that it need amount to, 
really; the stirring need not be deep — an inch of loose 
soil is enough — but it must be frequent, and only heavy 
rain should be allowed to interfere with the semi- 
weekly repetition of it. 

For small surfaces one of the small hand weeders 
is excellent. For larger spaces a hand cultivator, made 
purposely for tilling and used like a hoe, is better. 
There is, too, a wheel-hoe, which is excellent in gar- 
den rows, though it is not adapted to every sort of 
location as the hand cultivator is. 

Deeper stirring of the ground has more marked 
physical effects on the soil, hastening chemical activities 
and making the stores of plant food available. Very 
often soil contains all the elements necessary to support 
plant life richly, but not in such form that the plants 
can consume them. Therefore they go hungry in the 
midst of plenty, even as a man might in the midet of 
quantities of those elements which science has found 
out compose man — if they were not present in forms 
available to his teeth, appetite and digestive appa- 
ratus. 

Remember always, however, that deep tillage is not 
a conserver of moisture. On the contrary it lightens 

27 



THE GARDEN PRIMER 



stiff and heavy soils by draining them. Thus they be- 
come "deeper," warmer, finer and consequently more 
easily penetrated by the tiny hairlike rootlets that are 
the actual feeders. 

Plants growing as specimens — that is shrubs or 
flowers set by themselves and not in a bed or border — 
need this same treatment and respond to it with grati- 
tude almost as marked as the humbler garden stuff 
shows. Even trees appreciate the loosening of the 
earth around their trunks. Indoor pot plants, too, 
should be included. In fact one should cultivate the 
habit of disturbing the surface soil around practically 
everything that grows, for tillage is a requisite first, 
last, and all the time, to which everything else is sec- 
ondary. 



28 




By the time April comes around the plants 
in your hotbeds and coldframes will 
need thinning out, so strong seed- 
lings will be ready for 
May transplanting 




Even a pile of rocks in a bacl< yard can be made into a 

lovely Rock Garden, and such a garden has inspired 

many a beginner to further experiments 



VIII 
FERTILIZING AND FERTILIZERS 

IT is astonishing that such a measure of good luck 
attends the guesses which most of us make at supply- 
ing the needs of the soil — or to be more exact, the needs 
of the plants which grow in the soil — because very 
few really know anything about it. But of course the 
makers of commercial fertilizers have helped us greatly, 
and there are many, scientifically compounded and of 
real value, upon the market, every pound accompanied 
with directions for its application to the soil. What 
these compounds do, however, and why they do it, and 
why it needs doing, are details of the matter that even 
very advanced gardeners do not trouble to concern them- 
selves with — at least not often. The general idea is to 
make the soil "rich," and if one thing doesn't produce 
a crop luxuriant enough to indicate that this has been 
accomplished, something else is tried — something that is 
hit upon somehow, somewhere, that somebody says is 
good because it has benefited some other garden. 

Of course everybody knows that the growth of a 
plant requires food just as much as the growth of a chi d 
or a bird or anything else in creation requires food. 

29 



THE GARDEN PRIMER 



But the ideas about this food are very vague; "what 
plants eat " is an untold tale, mysterious, almost chimer- 
ical to the practical mind accustomed to seeing before 
believing. Let us see if we can't straighten this out a 
little and come to a real comprehension of plant feed- 
ing; then fertilizers will not seem so deadly dull and 
uninteresting, — and incomprehensible. 

The food of plants consists of thirteen "chemical 
elements.'* Nine of these are taken by the plant 
directly from the soil — these are the pure mineral plant 
foods — three are taken from water and from air, and the 
thirteenth and last is taken principally from decaying 
organic matter in the soil. 

In order to understand this quite clearly let us 
stop just here long enough to take a look at the chemical 
classification of the soil, spoken of in a previous 
chapter. Soil is made up of mineral matter and organic 
matter — two forms that are of course, widely different — 
and to get at this composition of it in the simplest way 
possible we will follow the suggestion of one of the 
Department of Agriculture experts and magnify a cubic 
inch of soil, in the imagination, to a cubic mile — and 
then look it over. It becomes very vivid, and the 
processes going on in it are plainly revealed, under such 
examination. 

It will look like a mass of rocks and stones vary- 
ing from the size of a pea to boulders several feet in 
diameter. These are the mineral particles — in common 
parlance the "dirt" — which predominate and form the 
foundation of all soil. Among these rocks and stones, 



FERTILIZING AND FERTILIZERS 

in many of their large and small interstices, will be 
decaying pieces of plant roots and stems and other 
organic matter which appear very much like logs and 
pieces of logs rotting among masses of rock and gravel. 
All of this organic substance will be dripping with 
water like a soaked sponge while all the stones and rocks 
have a layer of water over their surfaces. And finally, 
in all the spaces where there is nothing else, there is 
air — indeed nearly half the volume of the whole cubic 
mile is air. 

A plant root coming down into this magnified 
cubic inch of soil would be of course an enormous thing, 
pushing its way among the rocks and stones and decay- 
ing matter with a great, tireless, steady, resistless, 
pressure that would move the biggest of them. Near 
the tip of this ever extending and down-reaching growth, 
smaU hollow tubes — root hairs — would be seen reaching 
out and feeling this way and that, sucking the water 
from the surfaces of the rocks and from the dripping, 
spongy masses among them by drawing it through 
their thin and delicate walls. 

In this water is the mineral food, dissolved off in 
the minutest particles from the "rocks" — and it is 
somewhat staggering to note, by the way, that in 
order to produce one pound of growth in dry matter — 
that is in branch and leaf, flower and irmt—from 300 
to 800 pounds of water must be taken in by a plant's 
roots, drawn up through its stalks and branches, and 
discharged or " transpired " by its leaves. Think of the 
stupendous work being carried on by all the silent green 

31 



THE GARDEN PRIMER 



things that we give scarce a thought to in the long, 
drowsy summer days! 

All fertilizers present, in different forms, three 
essentials — phosphoric acid, potash and nitrogen. The 
latter is the last of those thirteen chemical elements 
mentioned which feed vegetation — the one which 
comes principally from decaying organic matter in the 
soil — and in some respects it is the most important of all. 
Unfortunately it is the one most easily lost, nitrates 
being very soluble, through washing out, or exhausted 
in other ways; therefore it is the one which should be 
applied only in sufficient quantity for the immediate 
use of the plants to be grown, and just at the proper 
time for their needs. It is usually well to wait until they 
are above the ground. 

Surplus phosphoric acid and potash, on the con- 
trary, will usually remain in the soil until succeeding 
crops use them up, so it does not matter so much if 
these are applied in excess. They are not wasted. 

What is known as a complete fertilizer is a com- 
bination of these three in the proportion generally of 
I part nitrogen, 2 parts phosphoric acid and 2J to 3 
parts potash. Such a fertilizer will meet all require- 
ments of the average garden, especially if the soil is 
treated with lime first. Lime is not a fertilizer in 
the strictest sense, but it sweetens the soil as well as 
helps to bring about physical and other changes that 
make plant food available. 

The sources of each of these three fertilizer ingre- 
dients are important to know and remember, for even 

32 




With careful cultivation such current-laden bushes as these 

will reward the garden beginner for all his 

trouble and pains 



FERTILIZING AND FERTILIZERS 

though a complete commercial product that just suits 
one's garden is found, it is well to have an intelligent 
understanding of its composition. Many times the 
application of one of the three is all that is needed and 
where this is the case it is much better to use only the 
one — for gorging the soil is as bad as starving it. 

Nitrogen is supplied by nitrate of soda, sulphate of 
ammonia, cotton seed meal, high grade dried blood, 
green manuring — that is a leguminous crop such as 
cow peas, clover of all kinds, soy beans and others, 
grown and plowed under — and by stable manure. 
No fertilizer is better than the latter if properly handled 
and all fertilizers should be supplemented by it for the 
humus that it carries into the soil. 

Potash is furnished by muriate and sulphate of 
potash — the latter is preferable as it can be used on all 
plants while the former cannot — by a crude German 
product called kainite, and by unleached wood ashes. 
The latter of course yield it in a much less degree for a 
given bulk but they are invaluable as a fertilizer. 

Phosphoric acid comes in "floats" — that is in 
South Carolina rock from the phosphatic beds of that 
state — in what are known as superphosphates, and in 
the various kinds of plain bone meal and bone ash or 
ground bone " flours" that are on the market. 

The work of these three elements is divided of 
course, but generally speaking nitrogen promotes lux- 
uriant growth of lea'f and branch, hence is the greatest 
stimulant to vegetables, especially those of which we 
eat the tops or leafy portions; potash builds up and 

33 



THE GARDEN PRIMER 



strengthens wood and fruit, while phosphoric acid 
seems to be the especial food which flowering plants, 
whether shrubby or herbaceous, most appreciate. 

Learn to watch your garden and find out from 
the plants and the way they grow just what it is that 
they need. Do not for instance give nitrogen when top 
growth is rank and luxuriant, but fruit of poor quality 
and not abundant, for such a condition probably means 
that trees are starving for potash. Of course all the 
elements should be present in order to get the best 
results — but frequently it is necessary to supply only 
one in order to make the proportions right, as already 
suggested. The trick is to find out which one. 

It is largely a matter of common sense, once you 
know what is what — and without knowing this no 
amount of directions wiU be any real help. It is 
necessary to realize what is going on down in the ground 
where the roots are doing their work — how they are 
gathering up one substance and another in the tiniest 
and most minute particles — in order to realize that a 
very little too much of one thing or a very little defi- 
ciency of the other will actually work ill to a plant — or 
well. 

Finally, there is one other thing about the soil 
that should here be mentioned, partly for the reason that 
it is so generally overlooked in all that is said or written 
about soil, good or bad, and partly because it is interest- 
ing. It is a phase of soil fertility that does not enter 
perhaps into the beginner's gardening, but who can tell 
what moment the beginner, inspired by success and 

34 



FERTILIZING AND FERTILIZERS 

other things, is going to branch out and become a real 
scientific agriculturist who wants to know everything? 
And then besides, who can know too much, even though 
he is but a beginner ? 

It is only recently comparatively, that investigators 
have been led to believe that plants give off certain 
organic substances during the processes of growth 
which, accumulating in the soil, are harmful to the 
successive growth of plants of the same kind. This 
may be the reason, or one of the reasons, why the bene- 
fits of crop rotation are so marked : the soil is freed from 
the toxic matter emanating from one species in the 
three or four years during which other crops are 
grown upon it. Sometimes — not often to be sure, 
but sometimes — poor and sterile soil may be poor 
and sterile because thus poisoned. 

But that is a big subject and such a condition 
will hardly occur in even a very advanced beginner^s 
garden. So one need not to go into the matter at 
first. However, remember it if later experience ever 
brings you the baffling problem of a soil that con- 
sistently and obstinately produces only failure under 
every kind of manipulation. There are such — soils 
that will not yield nourishment enough to sustain plant 
life — but happily they are being studied and experi- 
mented on until the reasons for their sulkiness stand 
small chance of remaining secret much longer. And 
every State Agricultural Experiment Station is ready 
to give anyone who may ask all the information which 
they have acquired on the subject — or to go farther 

35 



THE GARDEN PRIMER 



and take up the individual problem by making an 
analysis of a soil specimen submitted to them, and to 
advise according to that analysis. 

It is decidedly the part of wisdom to apply for this 
expert advice when an unusual condition exists; and 
such application is not only encouraged but it is urged 
by the Department, for of course each new problem 
means further opportunity for research and therefore 
a greater possibility of important discovery. 



36 




Well pruned trees enhance the beauty of any lawn, and add greatly to 

the attractiveness of the home grounds. Every garden 

beginner should bear this in mind, and also that 

pruning in time saves nine trees out of 

ten from early decay 



IX 

PRUNING 

NOWHERE is the struggle for existence keener 
and fiercer than in the vegetable kingdom. 
Thousands of seedlings sprout for every one that 
reaches maturity, and everywhere along the way, from 
root to branch and fruit, there is the same lavish 
extravagance in Nature. 

This is the chief reason for Pruning, broadly 
speaking; the principle of it is always to relieve the 
plant by reducing this struggle. For, of course, when 
its efforts are constantly strained to the utmost in just 
keeping alive, it cannot produce flowers or fruit in 
abundance nor of very high quality. And similarly 
when there are too many branches, none can be as 
strong and leafy as they should, for all are insuffi- 
ciently nourished. 

The process of pruning is an operation which 
has three objects in view, viz: 

1. Pruning proper, that is removing parts of the 
plant for the purpose of producing better growth in the 
remaining parts. 

2. Training, or arranging the branches of a 
plant to conform to certain directions of growth, 

27 



THE GARDEN PRIMER. 



attended nearly always with pruning proper or 
trimming. 

3. Trimming, pruning the branches of a plant for 
the purpose of ultimately bringing the plant to a 
preconceived shape, or artificial form. 

Thus the branches of a lanky plant may be (i) 
pruned to give it better growth, (2) trained to make them 
spread in the desired direction, and, later, (3) trimmed 
to make them conform to the shape it is desired that the 
plant should assume, or retain. 

Plants, unlike animals, do not suffer from the shock 
of amputation, for pruning is just that, — a sort of 
plant-surgery as it were, — when it is properly done. 
Indeed, properly done, it is an operation which greatly 
promotes the vigor of the plant subjected to it. And 
a little pruning every year is like the stitch in time, 
for the destruction of an ambitious shoot as soon as it 
starts is far easier on the tree and the gardener, too, than 
the laborious task of sawing through a good-sized 
limb after it has had time to mature. 

In the first place there are two things about form 
to remember in pruning; — one, applying to trees espe- 
cially, is that leading branches must never be allowed 
to spring from the same point on the trunk — or from 
opposite the same point is perhaps clearer — while the 
other, applicable to every sort of plant, is that, generally 
speaking, the outer shoots or branches should be left 
and the inner ones cut away. 

In the first instance the tree is weakened structurally 
and will split more readily under stress of wind or ice — 

38 



PRUNING 



or fruit — when its branches diverge at just the same 
level, forming a sharp crotch or Y; in the second, a 
plant becomes choked and top heavy if inner growth is 
constantly encouraged and the branches rub and 
interfere, injuring each other. 

And then there is a very important thing that 
does not conce n form at all, but does concern 
flowers — consequently fruit — vitally, and, therefore, 
must be always remembered and considered when 
there is any clipping to be done. This is the fact 
that every tree or shrub or vine has its own little 
personal peculiarity about flowers and the manner of 
producing them — and produces them usually only on 
wood of a certain age — sometimes one year, sometimes 
two, and sometimes even more. So it is always necessary 
to know the peculiarity of any plant in question in this 
respect before venturing to lop off a branch, else an 
entire season's product may be literally nipped in the 
bud. 

Of fruit trees the apple and pear bear on " spurs' ' 
of old wood that may be anywhere along the branches — 
but peaches are always borne on wood of the previous 
season's growth. Trimming off the annual shoots 
will therefore sacrifice the fruit of the latter but not of 
the former; while "heading in" — that is, removing the 
ends of the branches with their growing terminal buds — 
being a process that encourages the growth of lateral 
buds that are waiting for just this to happen, into 
shoots or young branches, of course increases the 
amount of new, therefore of fruit producing, wood. 

39 



THE GARDEN PRIMER 



Of flowering shrubs the hydrangea and the lilac 
afford much the same contrast as the apple and peach 
among fruit trees. Hydrangeas bloom on wood of the 
season's growth, lilacs on wood of the previous season. 
The former may be pruned very early in the spring 
therefore without danger of destroying the blossoms, but 
the latter should be gone over with the knife only im- 
mediately after flowering. This gives them the chance 
to grow branches for the next season and to stow 
them with flower buds before frost interferes. 

It is, of course, hardly possible in this limited 
space to name a very complete list of trees and shrubs, 
with their peculiarities in regard to bloom, but some 
of the most commonly planted are included below. 

TREE FRUITS 

Apple. Fruit borne on old spurs — prune in spring, 
or after the fruit is gathered. 

Pear. Fruit borne on old spurs — prime sparingly 
in spring, or after the fruit is gathered. 

Plum. Fruit mostly on spurs, but in some varieties 
on both spurs and annual growth — prune in spring. 

Cherry. Similar to plum — prune in spring or 
after harvest. 

Peach — Fruit borne near base of previous yearns 
shoots — prune after harvest. 

SMALL FRUITS 

Blackberry. Fruit borne on canes of previous 
season's growth — cut old canes out after fruiting, 
cut young canes back as soon as two feet high — cut 
laterals on these sparingly at tip in spring, or not at all. 

40 



PRUNING 



Raspberry. Same as blackberry; spring pruning 
is only to thin the fruit; all cutting back should be 
done the previous season. 

Currant. Fruit borne on both old and young 
wood — the best on base of i year shoots springing from 
I year spurs; have no wood over three years old. 

Grapes. Borne on wood of present season which 
rises from wood of previous season; fall or winter prun- 
ing is best. 

FLOWERING SHRUBS 

Roses. Flowers borne on new wood — prune out 
old wood and weak shoots after flowering — or cut back 
before life shows in spring from 4 to | of bush. 

Forsythia. Flowers borne on old wood — prune 
immediately after flowering. 

Hibiscus. On the season's shoots — pnme fall or 
early spring. 

Honeysuckle. See Lonicera. 

Hydrangea. Borne on the season's shoots — pnme 
fall or early spring. 

Lilac. See Syringa. 

Lonicera. Usually on season's shoots — safest to 
prune immediately after flowering however, as some 
varieties bloom very early. 

Philadelphus. (Commonly called Syringa.) Borne 
on old wood — prune immediately after flowering. 

Spiraea. (Shrubby varieties.) On old wood — 
prune sparingly after flowering. 

Syringa. On last year's wood — ^prune inmie- 
diately after flowering. 

41 



THE GARDEN PRIMER 



Viburnum. On old wood — prune after flowering. 

IVeigela. On old wood — prune after flowering. 

Clematis. On season's shoots — cut down in winter 
or early spring. 

Evergreen hedges. Prune in June, trimming just 
enough to keep the chosen form. 

The final word in pruning however must always be 
"restraint." Dead and weak wood should be cut from 
shrubs, superfluous branches which crowd a tree should 
be taken away — but only a little should ever need doing 
at one time or season. And only a little will need to 
be done at one time, if that little is attended to as each 
year brings it. Great branches of trees cannot be 
removed with impunity. Pruning should be practiced 
annually, from the period of young growth; the 
resulting wounds will then be small, and knot holes 
will not open themselves to the ravages of fungous 
plant diseases and of decay. 

As to the manner and fashion of severing a branch 
or a shoot there is not a great deal to say. Not but that 
many wrong ways are in evidence — but the right way 
is simply explained. Large limbs should always be 
cut as close to the niain trunk from which they spring 
as it is possible to lay a saw — and the cut should always 
be parallel with the main trunk and not at right angles 
to the branch taken away. No way but this is right, 
no matter who practices it. In the case of very large 
and heavy limbs — which ought never to be cut down 
unless there is a reason absolutely imperative — it is 

42 




This illustrates the manner of pruning the 
branches of shrubs (Privet In this in- 
stance), to induce bushy growth. 
By such pruning three branches 
will result where but 
one grew before 




This illustration shows a Geranium plant ^^at has been 

pruned. The cuttings-"slips"-have been started 

in other pots for new plants 



PRUNING 



best to remove the limb with two preliminary cuts, 
trimming the stub down to the proper level of the trunk 
afterwards. This prevents any splitting down of 
the limb as it gives way and makes a much neater and 
better job. 

The first of these two cuts should be made from the 
under side of the limb up, about five or six inches from 
its rise on the trunk; this should extend more than half 
way through the limb. Then half an inch nearer the tree 
trunk make the second cut, from the upper side of the 
limb down ; and the branch will fall to the ground without 
splintering or tearing the bark in the least. Then lay 
the saw flat against the main trunk and take off the 
stub. This levels the surface and prepares for the heal- 
ing process which Nature will immediately take up. 

Shoots and small branches should always be severed 
just above a bud, as near to it as possible yet far enough 
away to avoid injuring it. And in plauts on which the 
buds alternate, an outward setting bud should be the one 
left at the top of a pruned branch; in this way an out- 
ward growing branch will be assured — and that is the 
thing to be aimed at. 

All plant growth is carried on by the terminal buds — 
the buds at the end of the branches and twigs. Back 
of these and ranged on either side of the stem or branch, 
usually at regular intervals, are what are called the 
.ateral buds. From these, new branches spring — but 
only from comparatively few of them. Thus there are 
always a lot of seemingly useless buds ranked along 
every main stem. 

43 



THE GARDEN PRIMER 



But far from being useless these are Nature^s won- 
derful reserve, held back for weeks or months or maybe 
years as the case may be, yet always in readiness to 
spring to the rescue when the plant's normal leaf surface 
is taken away. For leaf surface cannot be reduced — 
the proportion between it and root surface must be 
maintained. With wonderful intelligence and patience 
they wait, therefore — these reserve buds — until injury 
comes to the terminal bud. Then they fairly leap into 
activity in their haste to supply the loss. 

It must always be remembered, therefore, that 
pruning at branch ends stimulates excessive growth of 
shoots up to a certain point — beyond this point the 
victim succumbs — and that the way to thin shrubs is 
to look beyond the twigs that are too numerous down to 
the branch or stalk whence they spring — to go right 
down to the ground and cut out old wood. 



44 




This illustrates a comDlnation of good and bad pruning. 

Though the wounds have been made close enough to 

the trunk and are healing properly, the branches 

are so trimmed that they have not been 

allowed to spread sufficiently, and thus 

the tree is headed too high 




The permanent hotbed when the weather 

permits removing the sash through 

part of the day 




Hotbed soil showing bed before manure is worked in 
left of bar), and after the manure has been 
worked under (to right of bar) 



(to 



THE HOTBED AND THE COLDFRAME 

EVERY garden beginner is eager to begin at once — 
to have things growing as soon as possible — and 
so, because a hotbed will advance the season anywhere 
from eight to ten weeks, he will early wish to learn 
something about making one. They are simple enough, 
and plain directions, carefully heeded, will bring success 
even to the novice. Do not hesitate to try one there- 
fore — you will surely resolve never to do without 
such a simple and wonderfully useful aid to the pleasure 
of planting. 

A hotbed is really a forcing house on a very small 
scale — a place where plants may be grown in advance 
of the open season by means of heat artificially supplied 
to them. This heat may be carried underneath the 
bed by steam or hot water pipes, but that is the 
bothersome and expensive way; or it may be furnished 
by placing the bed upon a mound of fermenting manure. 
This is the easiest and usual way, and the only one 
that need concern the beginner. 

Fresh manure from the stables of grain-fed horses, 
mixed with one-third bedding straw (this latter length- 
ens the heating period), should first be piled in 

45 



THE GARDEN PRIMER 



the protected spot chosen for the bed's location — a 
place where the north winds cannot reach. If the 
manure is dry, sprinkle it with tepid water to start 
decomposition. 



6 nr. — -M 




Cross-section diagram of a Hotbed. 

Steam will begin to rise from the pile in from three 
to five days. As soon as it appears have it well worked 
over, turning the outside inside and bringing the inside 
to the surface — then let it alone to warm up again. 
This will take two or three days more — the presence 
of the steam will indicate that it is ready, when the 
work may proceed. 

Spread the manure evenly over an area large 
enough to give a full two-foot margin all around outside 
the sash or sashes. Make it i8 inches deep — this for 
the latitude of New York City; have it proportionately 
deeper and broader in colder localities — and pack it 
firmly. On this flat pile set the frame to carry the sash. 

This frame is a bottomless and topless box made 
of two-inch planks; it should slope on top from a 
height of about 12 inches at the front to 18 or 24 inches 
at the back, with the sides slanted to conform to the 

46 



THE HOTBED AND THE COLDFRAME 

slope. Its ground dimensions are regulated by the 
size of the sash it is to have as its top or covering — so, 
as a matter of fact, the first thing to do in making a hot- 
bed is to get the sash. 

Any old sash will do, whatever its shape or size. 
Glazed for a window, it will doubtless leak when put 
to this more trying use, but if it is reasonably tight 
the plants under it will not suffer. Lacking a discarded 
sash, regulation hotbed sash will, of course, be neces- 
sary, but these are inexpensive. They are glazed 
differently, however, from the ordinary window-sash — 
and the way of doing it ought to be among the gardener^s 
accomplishments, for breakage is apt to occur. 



r- — srr- —A' -5rr — -i .^rr— -» jrr — -• 




This shows the construction of Hotbed frame to receive 

sash. 

The bars of these sash run lengthwise only, as 
you will see from the accompanying illustration, and 
are "rabbeted" to receive the glass. Spread soft putty 
along this rabbet, then, starting at the bottom of the 
sash, press the first pane down into the putty; fasten 
it with brads — the glazing points not being strong 
enough. Let the pane lap over the wood at the bottom 
rail half an inch, forming a watershed, and lap each 

47 



THE GARDEN PRIMER 



succeeding pane over the preceding one by half an 
inch, in the way shingles are overlapped in roofing. 
A brad under each lower comer will keep the panes 
from slipping down. 

With the hotbed placed upon the packed manure 
(the back or high end to the north always), proceed 
to bank up on the outside with more manure — quite up 
to the level of the lower or front edge. Then spread 
the soil, which is to be the actual seed bed, inside, 
making it from four to eight inches deep according to 
what you intend to grow. The shallower depth is 
quite sufficient for salad or for flower plants — only 
radishes and deeper growing root crops require the 
deeper bed. The planting soil of the hotbed should 
be rich and soft and friable — good garden earth with 
a mixture of sand is best. 

Put the sash on the bed, and let it heat up the 
earth inside. It will be hot for three or four days — 
much too hot, at first, for any planting. Keep a 
thermometer inside the frame; do not begin planting 
until it drops to 90° F. or less. 

As the plants must remain in the bed for two months 
it win be necessary to thin out the seedlings to make 
room therein. This should be done as soon as they 
appear in order to give the ones spared plenty of room 
to develop right from the start. Some of the plants 
may later be transferred to the coldframe if it is too 
early for them to go out into the garden and the hot- 
bed becomes overcrowded. 




The garden beginner will do well to fit up 

a convenient work bench somewhere, 

for there is a deal of puttering to be 

done at seed time, and when 

transplanting begins 




After you have prepared the soil in 
hotbed or coldframe mark off 
your planting rows care- 
fully and neatly 



THE HOTBED AND THE COLDFRAME 

The hotbed should be watered with a sprinkler, 
keeping the soil just moist enough to crumble apart 
slowly after being squeezed in the hand, as described in 
the chapter on the soil. Be sure that the sash is always 
in place after you have tended the bed — forgetting to 
replace it will result in plant tragedy. And be sure 
to ventilate the hotbed on warm days by raising the 
sash ever so little, or by slipping it down in the middle 
of the day, — between 11.30 and 1.30, when the sun is 
shining directly on the glass. 

Till the soil of the hotbed as you would any- 
where in the garden — only do not keep the sash 
off for any length of time. Reach under to do the 
work. Nasty little green things that look like lice 
will probably appear — beastly, soft, smushy aphids 
they are. They revel in hotbeds, but a solution made 
of one-quarter pound of white soap dissolved in a 
little boiling water and then reduced in strength by add- 
ing five gallons of water, used tepid in a sprayer, will 
make short work of them. They will come again, no 
doubt — but vigilance will save the crop from their devas- 
tating armies. Fortunately they die easily — almost as 
easily as they come. They are often on the under side of 
leaves and unsuspected until the leaf curls — and then 
unseen because of their color. Keep a sharp watch 
for them. Other insect and fungous pests and how to 
get rid of them will be taken up in a later chapter. 

A mat of straw or several thicknesses of burlap 
should be provided to cover the sash on cold 
nights — and it is seldom wise to build the bed before 

49 



THE GARDEN PRIMER 



the last week of February or the early part of March. 
If ready by March loth you will find it early enough 
for all practical purposes — and the plants in it will be 
big fellows by the time the ground is warm enough out- 
side to receive them. 

Unless the space it occupies is needed during the 
summer the bed may be left and used for a coldframe 
in the fall, for lettuce or other salad plants. 

The coldframe differs from the hotbed in that it 
is constructed without an underpit of heat-producing 
materials, and is intended merely to provide greater 
protection from cold and winds for growing plants. 
It is made of a board frame set on top of the ground, 
not in-sunken like the hotbed, but like a hotbed 
it has a protective sash over the top to cover it. 




Usual form of Coldframe. 

Its usefulness in the beginner's garden can scarcely 
be overestimated, for by having a coldframe at hand 
the garden-maker may be sure of early salad plants and, 
in a small way, be far in advance with melons and 
cucumbers. 

50 



THE HOTBED AND THE COLDFRAME 

Likewise the coldframe serves the garden-maker 
as a winter protection for tender plants that will not 
stand wintering in the North, while very often it hap- 
pens that the hotbed becomes overcrowded. In this 
eveijt the coldframe is an especially valuable adjunct 
to its usefulness inasmuch as the plants from the 
thinned-out hotbed need not be lost, but instead 
may be saved by being set into the coldframe for 
intermediary growth against the time when the natural 
outdoor garden is ready to receive them. 




IUW>«* 



Coldframe with double sash. 

As their cold-proof qualities is their reason for 
being, these coldframes, no matter how simple, must 
be carefully, constructed in order that the parts where 
there is any joinery may be weather-proof. The 
accompanying illustration will show, at once, the : ort 
of a structure the garden beginner may require for 
his initial experiments with early-raising. Not only 
will the hotbed and coldframe serve the grower of 
early vegetables, but will also promote the success of 
the flower garden, and make possible earlier flowers, 

51 



THE GARDEN PRIMER 



and the bloom of certain perennials their first season 
that could not be accomplished without recourse to 
this phase of gardening. 



52 



XI 

GARDEN PESTS AND SPRAYING 

EVERY beginner is apt to meet the discouragements 
that come with the appearance of insect and 
fungous pests in nearly every garden at some time. 
You may wonder why your lovely flowers or your fat 
vegetables, your stately Hollyhocks or your practical 
potatoes seem, of a sudden, not only to stop growing 
but actually to wither or decay. You will have to look 
closely at their leaves and search around their roots for 
the trouble that is brewing. You will find that insects 
or fungous growths have appeared to disturb their 
peace. Indeed almost every plant under cultivation 
is subject to some blight or pest from which, in its wild 
state, the plant has been free. 

However, there is now hardly a single plant ail- 
ment that we are either unfamiliar with or unable to 
cope with, wherefore liquid spraying, or the application 
of liquid fungicides and insecticides to affected trees, 
shrubs, vines, and plants, has become an expedient of 
the greatest importance to everyone having a lawn or 
garden. It is a disheartening thing to see the plants you 
have worked over and nurtured turn sere-leaved out 
of season, droop and die, when you have looked forward 

S3 



THE GARDEN PRIMER 



to their mature beauty and usefulness with all the hope 
the heart of a garden-maker can hold. 

Fungous plant-diseases are quite as much to be 
dreaded as attacks from insect foes upon plant life. 
We can hardly cure their mischief, but, to a great extent, 
we can prevent their occurrence by spraying and, in 
some measure, check the spread of blight or anthracnose 
likewise. 

As only a microscope will disclose to us just where 
the minute fungi spores are lodging themselves, it be- 
comes necessary to prevent the possibility of their ap- 
pearing at all, even if, in seasons past, our trees and 
shrubs and vines and plants seem to have been free from 
disease. Not only must they be sprayed once but often, 
as the effect of liquid spraying (which has great advan- 
tage over dust spraying) is cumulative. The first spray- 
ing may not reach tiny spores tucked away in budding 
portions of the plant, which, when these come into 
branching proportions then present the disease upon 
a surface that must be reached by subsequent spray 
application. Nevertheless all the spraying in the world 
will be rendered futile if your neighbor's trees, shrubs 
vines or plants are diseased and still do not receive like 
attention. Therefore one of the first things to do is to 
prevail on him to have his spraying done coincident 
with yours, and if he remains indifferent to the matter 
it is far better for you to bear the expense of doing it 
for him than to subject your trees to danger from con- 
tamination. Indeed, the matter of communal effort 
in this direction is of such importance that many 

54 



GARDEN PESTS AND SPRAYING 

neighborhood societies of garden owners have been 
formed, and out of the common treasury the expenses of 




Types of chewing insects. 

neighborhood spraying have been borne, thus establish- 
ing one of the most helpful cooperative movements 
known for the maintenance of fair areas. 

Insect pests may be divided into two general 
classes of external feeders — insects that injure the 
plants by biting or gnawing (these must be got rid 
of by poisoning their food), and insects that destroy 




Types of sucking insects. 

55 



THE GARDEN PRIMER 



plant life by sucking the juices of the plants (these 
latter must be met openly and killed by penetrating ex- 
ternal poisons, fume suffocation, etc., as they pay no 
attention to mere surface poisons). 

In the first class we have the Flea-beetle, the 
Potato-bug, the Cabbage-worm, the Cinch-bug, and 
various other beetles and injurious larvae, also Grass- 
hoppers. Among the second class are to be found the 
moth parents of the Cut-worm, the Tassel-worm, the 
white Grub-worm's moth, the Onion-maggot, Maple- 
borer and Rose-bug. 

Spraying is easily accomplished even on the small- 
est premises. Excellent and inexpensive apparatus is 
offered in the market (your florist or your nurseryman 
can always supply you with reliable manufacturers* 
addresses). The pump should be strongly made, and 
one nozzle will be sufficient. You will probably have 
to renew the spraying hose every year, if you have much 
work to be done. If you have a large garden you can 
rig up a barrel on wheels, for moving the Bordeaux 
Mixture or other arsenate sprays around, and fit it 
with pump hose and nozzle at a total cost of ten 
dollars. 

For a small garden a hand sprayer costing, say, four 
dollars, is sufficient. The knapsack style of sprayer, 
carried by straps on the shoulders, is especially good 
and will throw a spray fully fifteen feet. This can be 
used to equal advantage on fruits and vegetables. 
With heavier sprays, such as Paris green and Lime- 
sulphur wash, agitation is necessary to keep the com- 

56 




Because Hollyhocks and many other plants 
are subject to plant diseases and insect 
pests the garden beginner need not 
be frightened away when such 
lovely flowers as these may 
be brought to maturity 
with very little trou- 
ble after all 



GARDEN PESTS AND SPRAYING 



pound properly mixed, and many mixtures should be 
strained before using thus for Lime-sulphur a strainer 
of not more than twenty meshes to the inch is necessary 
(a smaller mesh would fill up). The nozzles must be 
kept from clogging. 





Bucket Hand-Sprayer and Knapsack Hand-Sprayer. 

In spraying, as high a pressure as possible is ad- 
visable, as the mist-like spray produced thereby reaches 
every part of the plant. Indeed thoroughness in spray- 
ing is one of the essentials to successfully combating 
plant pests, for any hit-or-miss program renders the 
final result of little lasting value. 

Timeliness in spraying is a matter of the utmost 
importance. The garden-maker should make his 
preparations early, and from time to time study up the 
subject so he may be forewarned as well as forehanded. 
One good way to keep posted on such matters is to 
study the catalogues of manufacturers and by reading 

57 



THE GARDEN PRIMER 



agricultural bulletins, as year by year spraying appara- 
tus is improved and simplified, and many valuable 
spraying formulae are produced to combat with success 
new plant pests. The accompanying table is, for all 
general purposes, a safe calendar of spraying operations 
to use as a guide. 

The following recipes are some of the more common 
ones in general use: 

INSECTICIDES 

1. Arsenate of Lead. Use 4 oz. to 5 gals, of water. 

2. Paris Green. Use i part Paris green to 
5 gals, water. 

3. Kerosene Emulsion. J lb. soap dissolved in 
I gal. boiling water. Add 2 gals, kerosene; agitate 5 
minutes. Dilute a dozen times before applying with 
spray. 

4. Lime-sulphur. Use unslaked lime 5 lbs., 
flowers of sulphur 3I lbs., salt i lb., water 12 gals. 

5. Ar senile of Lime. Use white arsenic i lbs.. 
Crystal sal soda 4 lbs. (or if of the anhydrous sal 
soda, only 2 lbs.), to i gal. of water. 

6. Ammoniacal Copper Carbonate. Use Copper 
carbonate 5 oz., Ammonia (26° Beaum^) 3 pints, water 

45 gals. 

7. Whale-oil soap. Dissolve 2 lbs. in i gal. hot 
water. Dilute 4 times before spraying. 

8. Formalin Spray. Use i pint Formalin to 30 
gals, water. 

58 



GARDEN PESTS AND SPRAYING 

9. Copper Sulphate. Use i lb. Copper sulphate 
to from 25 to 50 gallons of water. 

FUNGICIDES 

10. Bordeaux Mixture. Use 5 lbs. Copper sul- 
phate, 5 lbs. unslaked quicklime, and 50 gals, water. 
Slake lime wi h water to a thin paste and strain this. 
Place lime paste and Copper sulphate in jug and mix 
thoroughly by shaking. Then add this to full quantity 
of water. Any arsenites to be combined with Bordeaux 
mixture may be added as required. 

11. Sulph'de of Potassium. Use 4 oz. of potas- 
sium sulphide to 5 gals, water. Dissolve sulphide in 
warm water and dilute to spraying strength. Use 
only when fresh as it soon loses strength. 

The following names of insect and fungous pests 
are followed each by the number of the recipe for the 
spray to use in coping with it : 

INSECT PESTS 

Aphids (Plant Lice) 5; Borer 10; Canker Worm 
2; Codlin Moth 5, 9; Cottonwood-leaf Beetle 5; Cut- 
worm 5; Elm Beetle 5, 3; Elm Scale 3; Fall Web- 
worm 5; Four-striped Plant-bug 3; Hollyhock Bug 3; 
Leaf Cutter 3; Maple Borer 11; Maple Cotton Scale 
(Wooly Scale) 7; Mealy Bug 7; Mite 3; Oyster shell 
Scale 3, 4; Red Spider 3; Rose Bug i; Roseleaf 
Hopper 7; Rose Scale 3; Rose Slug 6; San Jos^ Scale 
3, 7, 4 (winter) ; Scurfy Scale 3, 7, 4 (winter) ; Tussock 
Moth 2 ; Willow Worm 5. 

59 



THE GARDEN PRIMER 



FUNGOUS PESTS 

Anthracnose lo; Chrysanthemum Leaf-spot lo; 
Hollyhock Rust lo; Leaf Blight lo; Leaf-rust lo; 
Maple Leaf-spot lo; Mildew lo; Pansy Rust lo; 
Rose Leaf-blight lo; Rust lo; Verbena Rust ii. 

For the Borer paint the trunk of trees with lime- 
wash, containing 5 oz. of Paris Green to each gallon of 
water. For ants pour a teaspoonful of bisulphate of 
carbon in each ant-hole and cover up. The chewing 
insects that injure our ornamental trees may be de- 
stroyed by arsenite sprays, but the sucking insects must 
be smothered by such sprays as the whale-oil soap (7), 
kerosene emulsion (3) , or the lime-sulphur solution (4) . 

One of the greatest aids to freedom from fungous 
and insect pests is cleanliness in the garden. See to it 
that your lawns, yards, orchards, gardens, borders and 
all are free from rubbish, especially free from vegetable 
matter, such as old tree- twigs and plant stocks that have 
died from abnormal causes. As a stitch in time 
saves nine so does the spraying of one infected 
plant often save all of them from total destruction. 
Therefore it is well for the amateur gardener, as well as 
for the professional, to have always at hand some con- 
venient and ready reference for emergencies. 

The garden beginner will find the Tables of 
First, Second, Third and Fourth Spraying, with key 
to Insecticides and Fungicides to use, at the end of 
this volume (pages 112 and 113), and it should prove 
a handy and reliable table for reference. 



60 




When there are extensive spraying operations to be at- 
tended to the barrel pump-spray, moved around on a 
pair of wheels, may be resorted to, but the garden 
beginner can probably dispense with this the 
first season, unless he takes hold of a 
big lawn, grove, and garden 




The wheelbarrow, spade, hoe, rake, trowel and watering 
pot are the gardener's friends. We see what faith- 
fulness to their use has helped to produce here 



XII 
GARDEN TOOLS 

AS one cannot have a good garden without cultivat- 
ing it, there cannot, in turn, be good cultivation 
without good tools. By good tools, the beginner will 
come to understand, is meant useful tools. They need 
not be elaborate, expensive and intricate affairs, but 
neither need they be as clumsy as the implements of the 
aborigines. 

In gardening you dig up the soil, pulverize it, and 
work it over. Hence you will need a spade (or a 
garden trowel for a small bed), a rake (or a gardening 
hand rake for a small bed), and a hoe (or again the 
garden trowel for a small bed) in cultivating. None 
of these things can well be dispensed with because they 
are primitive in principle and yet eternal in usefulness. 

When you have turned over the soil with the spade 
or trowel, have pulverized it, more or less, with rake or 
hand-rake, and have had your seeds in the ground until 
they are just appearing, you will find the hoe (or a hand 
weeder in small beds) necessary in checking the weeds, 
which always seem to outdistance the garden plants 
in growth rapidity. 

6i 



THE GARDEN PRIMER 



For the larger garden of vegetables in rows the 
wheel-hoe is one of the most worth-while tools ever in- 
vented. It combines weeding and cultivating and is 
so simple in its principle that one may recommend its 
use to the beginner who need have no fear of its being 
a complicated machine, requiring vast experience to 
run it. 

As a gardening accessory a garden line will be of 
great service. By its use, stretched between movable 
stakes, the beginner can lay out his rows straight as 
any arrow, and have rectangular beds that are not lop- 
sided. Then by driving a stake in the center, and 
throwing a loop of the line around it, when once he has 
fixed the length of the radius, he can move the line 
around in a circle and thus mark out a perfect circular 
bed. 

Then there is the watering-pot to be thought of, 
unless hose and nozzle you have at hand. Hand- 
sprayers can be purchased if your plants are troubled 
by pests, but all these things can be added as necessary. 
A few good tools is all anyone need bother with, though 
it will pay the garden beginner to read over the cata- 
logues of garden-tool manufacturers and keep abreast 
of all the devices on the market, as some one of them 
may fit some especial need. 



62 



XIII 
THE FLOWER GARDEN 

THE making of a successful flower garden is not a 
matter to be left to chance, and perhaps it is one 
of man's inconsistencies that he is willing to dig and 
delve for a vegetable, while, more often than not, he 
begrudges the care he should give a Verbena, as though 
the satisfaction of a sense of the beautiful should not 
have half a chance with one's appetite. Now there 
is scarcely anyone who does not care for flowers, al- 
though it must be admitted there are many who give 
them little enough thought. 

With the first breath of every spring and the return 
of the birds from their winter holiday, one begins to 
feel an enthusiasm for making just as good resolutions 
as every New Year's day brings forth. Among them 
no one is more fitting to the happiness of living than 
a resolve to have a flower garden. The joy of it 
will always repay the trouble of it a thousand times 
over. 

In the preceding pages the garden beginner wiU 
have learned about garden soils and their preparation, 
seeds, transplanting, and the care of mature plants, as 

(>3 



THE GARDEN PRIMER 



well as all that it is necessary for him in the beginning 
to know about fertilizing. Therefore, what to plant 
becomes a matter of moment, as also a hint that such 
flowers as Candytuft Love-in-a-mist, Lupine, Mig- 
nonette, Nasturtium and Poppy will not bear trans- 
planting. 

As the garden beginner has learned. Perennials 
seldom blossom until the second season after planting 
from seed, and so the annuals are the plants to which 
the amateur gardener turns when in need of flower 
effects for the first year of his experimenting. How- 
ever, lateness in season need not deter one from having 
a garden even if it is long past seeding time. Grown 
plants may be obtained from the florist, and after these 
plants have found themselves at home in your garden 
they will increase, with care, year after year, until you 
in turn will be able to exchange with your gardening 
neighbors. Thus one may have all sorts of beautiful 
flowers in his first year's garden. 

The accompanying table is designed to guide the 
beginner at flower gardening to the standard annuals 
and perennials everyone may grow almost anywhere. 
It indicates time of sowing, blossoming, etc., which 
information everyone planting a flower garden will find 
most useful to have for reference. For all general 
purposes the plants in this table have been divided into 
perennials, annuals, and biennials, indicated by the 
letters P, B, A. Many of the perennials may be treated 
as annuals, certain annuals as biennials and certain 
biennials as annuals. Therefore, some of the species in 

64 




Why not make the border in the clothes-yard 

by the back fence just as lovely as the 

garden In front of your house? 

Anyone can learn to do it 




A well-kept border of Annuals and hardy 

Perennials is a joyous sight in every 

perfect garden, and is something 

the garden beginner should 

strive to Imitate 



THE FLOWER GARDEN 



the list are prefixed by two or more letters. As the 
Chimney Bell Flower {Campanula pyramidalis) , Rocky 
Mountain Columbine {Aquilegia ccerulea), and Iceland 
Poppy {Papaver nudicaule)^ are so short-lived at best, 
they are, for instance, to be treated as biennials. 

As the wise among mankind are those to whom far- 
sightedness is sure to bring its rewards, so, among 
gardenkind, looking ahead will help one along the 
pleasant paths of garden making. Everyone should 
try to picture the garden as it will appear in its wealth 
of bloom, long after the dull-colored earth has donned 
its garb of green and gorgeous color. If he garden 
maker wiU do this he will not wake up to find that 
he has planted scarlet Gladioli next to delicate p nk 
Cosmos, purple Iris next to blue Campanula, nor mixed 
the exquisite Love-in-a-mist with blatant Zinnias. 



65 



XIV 



PLANTING TABLE OF THE BEST FLOWERS 
FOR THE GARDEN 



Q 

< 
O 

e^ 
O 

CD 

o 

H 

CO 

W 

S 
h 

O 

w 

O 

H 
Z 

<: 



c 
c 

d 

bow* 

o "" ca 

C Mb? 



o .2^ 



n -u ^-' 

C C 4) 

U5 W 05 

(1) 4) 0) 

4-> ti *J 

ctf cJ ca 

a G a 



0) 

M« . 
t^ !* !f? 

li CI] -u 

s-i bo-s 

.^ rt 2 
•n u ^ 
o •*-! ^-' 

O >, t-i 



> ■" G 
S art 

y ?! w 



^"5 3 

t/5 t/5 05 
ODD 
-u -tJ +j 

rt oj cd 
o o o 

^^^ 
C C c3 
I— ••— ii_( 



a 

o 
0) 

c 

CO 



c rt'~^ 
o " (U 
M >»■»-> 

w--- rt 



.S ?^> G <« 



bfl t< he u 

bo Uc bo u 
73 Otj o 



pQfflSSS«!<S 



>-• bo 



be^ ** 
.S g-o 



"7 I lU I G'7 (OOJ CCCDi' 

05 Wr) 05 4) 05 05*0 13 (/)(/>(/) t/5-j-. •— ."'T-l (/) t/5 05 CO Wl 
O5U5j;o3iUt/3O5CC'''"'O5U5h0b0b0t;</5(/lWO5O3 

SSw;Sa5'SScqcQSSJ^SWWWfQSSSSS 









bo-^ho 
■ 3 



4J ""^ O -tJ Q^ •4-' bo 

^^"3 4)45 " oT^ P^ 4)"5;5' 33? o oo 
S P S| ^S Si>S S ^h^h%h^h>:hh 

3^ 3 3^3 :3 ^ 3 p 3 3 ^ « 3 ^^l ;3 3 3 3 3 



rtoooo *[ oaaoaca u^«oo •*»o o >o o o n o i « 



^ « O O «1 <i I >o 






O 
(A 



ffi.S 



&I 



M 



>44 I «■»»■< * 



■4d>4»>»»i H i^ l * ' >»'»«' « ■♦»■♦«■« 



^•^♦•■^o ^♦tf^c^^ 



n] 



nJ 

rt "C >> "5 >• >^ >■ t« 
S a rtS rt rt rtg 



cd c4 c() 



cda)cicacac4c4rtnlcjo.c<)c4 rtS rt rt rtS cS cfl nJ 



) ro »< (1 H H 

« •* I I I I I 
H n N M lo Ooo 



O o 



M O 



^ t<500 Of} M c*) 



t^ ^00 






I lOOl iMMl^tOIOI lOOl" 




■=G 

•as 

'■ 3 



4) 05 



6 4> 



:K 






^ G C 



^S'B-SGimc- 



rt-n^:^ 3.0 a„ 



G-tr ocQ "5 u; 
s. u. rt 3 ^J a_2 

SofeSi>-S^Sj9^sa^i^ 



. -5_, 0'I=! ^--2 >.'3 4) I T'^ rt 4> 

^^13 8 G E7;^Si«i5£f=^ 



o _ 

6 Oo 

Gi o O t-^-S^ 
"'00000i?i?>000rt.i500 



< < < cq<m 



68 



cs ^ 

0) o 

He -P!^ 



t» 


MU 


c 


c c 


■a 


"S'Si 


'^ L. 


•OTD 


V fe 


(U 4) 






bobo 
_c a 

'U'D , 



<U 4) C 



ec -VSCT 4> iT4iSW, 4> TTl) TTTV 

to efl 1* M wr) 4^ OT wn3 wi to m w-a r r <" '"'O <" <" "''O co w oj w ui 
(nS4iMwv;4)(/i(nt;(/5ioo5ait:;ajQ;w(nJ;coOTMC;aiu)wo3io 

rtC hn)rtoh'S"iOrtcSrtnJoSlM'^"'0<^''SrtOrt 



be 
c 

rt o o "3 rt 3 h n! h o -O o "! o rt 



•a 

TD O O J3 
4)^^ V) 



r^ h 



to u 

■u o 

4)^ 



00 

a 

"O 

Ih M U 4J !-• 




iv^ Sc MM M I^OO 






00 
00 U100 V) T*" ^« 00 « 00 >o »o 00 



^^w^D ^<*4^^^*^*»^* 



>4*>^ >♦* >♦>■««><»>»» C -♦« 






>.>. 



<2t=^fe» 



: >. 






>> : >. 

t- -6= 



^■"^ >■>.>>■ 






oo>*<ij 
o "^ I 



OOfinO^'+O't 

? I I I I 1 • ■ ■ ■ 
00 w vo »0 >0 



M M fO 



to 



££ V o o 

I I I I f1 O no M I »OvO I I I I ll'tlll I 1^1 TfOO I < 

WM00OMcOr,r,M_ ^CtCl^vO^J P)0«0««cO«mvO 

MMMM +i+j2 «1MM MVOMWM (f) 



00 O . O 't 

M to c •*> ** 



■*00 I 00'*' « I I'.S 



MM "^ 



^^ M 































o 




































yellow 
to oran 
blue... 
nk.... 




4 




C 


! 4 


n 




















^ 












.2^ 


'''i 






















blue, pi 
^hite. . . . 

to oran 
white. . . 












• ij +i 4) 












.fl;^ 


• M 






•o 










to rose- 
yellow 
yellow- 
blue -pi 


03 " 4. 


4 




V 


tr 




S 

nk-whi 
to clare 
ept blu 
to rose 
to scar 
red-yel 
-nink. 






tr 




2.2, £ 


.b 
••n 

• o 

* o 




r^ 


a 1/ 






& : 


-. '. ' ' 


r 


ft 


' 




■ > c 




-i 




^ 




J 


3-?: 


. 


<J . 




' 


^ 




> 




+■ 




D .> fe 






.' 











- 



a 

o. 

• UJ J O 

13 U o ii.'L 

KH "T* h-" U U 
l-M hU l-U I— I I— < 




rt rt O O O :3 rt rt^" O O O . .„ ^ 






c^ ii^ « Oh < Ph<i1 < <J <J a. 0^ < < a. <I < <1 < ci< p^ < 0-1 a, <i <tj a^ Oh a< <J a< cu <J 0^ Oi <J 0- «jJ <J a, a, a, 



Q-CL-^ 



69 



XV 

THE VEGETABLE GARDEN 

THE prose of gardening — vegetable-raising — is quite 
as interesting as its poetry — flower culture, 
when it is well done. There is nothing that gives one 
a greater satisfaction than a model vegetable garden, 
no matter how small it may be. The old notion that 
vegetable seed had merely to be stuck in the ground 
to come forth fruitfully for the family table has long 
since been dissipated by the knowledge that no plants 
require more careful attention and more good common 
sense in starting them and in bringing them to maturity 
than do vegetables. 

Nevertheless any garden beginner who has pro- 
fited by what he has learned in these pages has only 
to apply the information thus gleaned to the making 
of a vegetable garden. The appended tables will be of 
great service to the amateur gardener, and by follow- 
ing these directions, and broadening his knowledge 
by the actual experience he will derive from his first 
year's garden, raising vegetables will no longer be a 
thing that seems fraught with more difficulties than 
appear worth while coping with. Instead, after he 

71 



THE GARDEN PRIMER 



has once started his vegetable garden, and has brought 
its produce to the happy stage of maturity there will be 
instilled in his gardening soul an enthusiasm for these 
marvels of patience and good soil that will lead him, 
year after year, to repeat his garden making, but to 
avoid his mistakes. 

In order that the garden beginner may make fewer 
of these mistakes the appended tables of what vegetables 
to plant, and their various directions, have been pre- 
pared, being the recorded result of mature experience 
in vegetable gardening. 



72 



XVI 

PLANTING TABLE OF BEST GARDEN 
VEGETABLES 



PLANTING-TABLE OF BEST GARDEN 
VEGETABLES 



Vegetable 



When to sow 
or plant! 



Depth 
to sow 
in ins. 



Distance 



Apart in 
rows' 



Rows 
apart 



Seed or 
plants for 
50-ft.row 



No. 
days 
to 
ger- 
mi- 
nate 



No. days 

to 
mature 



I. Crops Remaining Entirb Season. 



Asparagus, seed. 
Asparagus, plants 

Bean, pole 

Bean, lima 

Beet, late 

Carrot, late 

Corn, late 

Cucumber 

Egg Plant, seed . 
Egg Plant, plants 

Leek 

Melon, musk 

Melon, water . . . 

Onion 

Okra 

Parsley* 

Parsnip 

Pepper, seed 

Pepper, plants . 
Potatoes, main.. 

Pumpkins 

Rhubarb, plants 

Salsify 

Squash, summer 
Squash, winter .. 
Tomato, seed... . 
Tomato, plants.. 



April-May 

April 

May 15-June 10 
May 20-June 10.. 

April- August 

May- July 

May 20-July 10.. 
May 10- July 15., 

June ist 

June 1-20 

April 

May is-June 15.. 
May 15-June 15.. 

April 

May 15-June 15.. 

April-May 

April 

June ist 

June 1-20 

April 15-June 20. 
May i-June 20.. . 

April 

April-May 

May 15-July I.. . 
May 15-June 20.. 

June 

May 15-July 20.. 



I 


2-4 in. 


4 


I ft. 


2 


3 ft. 


2 


3 ft. 


2 


3-4 in. 


i-l 


2-3 in. 


3 


3 ft. 


I 


4 ft. 


i 


3-6 in. 




3 ft. 


— 


2-4 m. 


I 


4 ft. 


I 


6-8 ft. 


^-i 


2-4 m. 


i-i 


2 ft. 


* 


4-6 in. 


f-l 


3-5 m. 


* 


3-6 in. 




2 ft. 


4-6 


13 in. 


1-2 


6-8 ft. 


— 


2-3 ft. 


I 


3-6 in. 


1-2 


4 ft. 


1-2 


6-8 ft. 


i 


3-4 in. 




3 ft. 



IS in. 
3 ft. 
3 ft. 

3 ft. 
15 in. 
IS in. 

4 ft. 
4 ft. 
IS in. 

2ift. 

IS in. 
4 ft. 
6-8 ft. 
IS in. 
3 ft 
I ft. 
18 in. 
15 in. 

2ift. 
2i ft. 

6-8 ft. 

3 ft. 
18 in. 

4 ft. 
6-8 ft. 
IS in. 
3 ft. 



I oz. 

i Pt. 
ipt. 
I oz. 
i oz. 
*pt. 
i oz. 
i oz. 

25 

i oz. 
i oz. 
i oz. 
i oz. 
i oz. 
i oz. 
i oz. 
i oz. 

25 

ipk. 
i oz. 

25 

i oz. 
i oz. 
i oz. 
i oz. 
20 



20-30 

6—10 
6—10 
7-15 
10—20 
4-10 
4-15 
6—12 

6—20 

6-20 

6-20 

15-25 

10—20 

15-25 

12-18 

6-15 

15-20 
6-10 

8-15 
6-10 
6-10 

6—12 



II. Crops for Succession Plantings. 



Bean, dwarf . .. . 

Endive^ 

Kohlrabi* 

Lettuce* 

Peas, smooth. . . . 
Peas, wrinkled. . 

Radish 

Spinach 

Turnip 

Beet, early 

Broccoli, early*.. 

Borecole* 

Brussels Sprouts* 
Cabbage, early*.. 

Carrot. . . 

Cauliflower'* 

Com, early 

Onion Sets 

Peas 

Crops in Sec TL. 



May 5-Aug. 15... 

April-August 

April-July 

April-August. . . . 
April I -Aug. I.. . 
April lo-July 15. 
April i-Sept. i... 

April-Sept. 15 

April-Sept 



i 

i 
2-3 
2-3 

i 

I 



2-4 xn. 

I ft. 
6-12 in. 
I ft. 
2-4 in. 
2-4 in. 
2-3 in. 
3-5 in. 
4-6 in. 



li-2 ft. 
I ft 
ii-2!ft. 
i-iift. 
3 ft. 
3-4 ft. 
I ft. 
18 in. 
15 in. 



I pt. 
i oz. 
i oz. 
50 

I pt. 
I pt. 
^ oz. 
i oz. 
i oz. 



6-10 
5-10 
6-10 
5-15 
5-1 5 
5-15 
3-10 
6-15 
3-8 



III. Crops to be Followed by Others. 



April- June. . . . 

April 

April 

April 

April 

April 

April 

May jo-20. . . . 
April-May 15.. 
April I -May i. 



2 
i-i 
i-i 
i-i 
i-i 
i-i 
i-i 

2 
1-2 



3-4 m. 
lift. 

2 ft. 
lift, 
lift. 
2-3 in. 
lift. 

3 ft. 
2-4 in. 
2-4 in. 



15 in. 

2 ft. 

2ift. 
2 ft. 
2 ft. 

15 in. 

2 ft. 
3-4 ft. 
IS in. 

3 ft. 



1 oz. 
35 

25 

35 
35 

i oz. 
35 
ipt. 

2 pt. 
r pt. 



7-iS 
5-10 
5-10 
5-10 
5-10 
10—20 
S-io 
4-10 

5-15 



74 



IV. Crops That May Follow Others. 



Beet late 

Borecole 

Broccoli 

Brussels Sprouts. 
Cabbage, late. . . 

Cauliflower 

Celery, seed 

Celery, plant . . . . 

Peas, late 

Crops in Sec. II. 



July- August... 
May-June-. . . . 
May-June^ . . . 
May- June 2 . . . 
May-June^ . . , 
May-June^ . . , 

April 

July I -Aug. I.. 
May i5-Aug. i 



J- 
2-3 in. 



3-4 in. 

2-ft. 
2 ft. 
lift. 
2iit. 

2 ft. 

1-2 in. 
6 in. 
2-4 in. 



IS in. 
2i ft. 
2iit. 
2iit. 
2iit. 

2ift. 

I ft. 
3-4 ft. 
4 ft. 



I oz. 

25 
25 

35 

25 

25 

I oz. 

lOO 

I pt. 



7-1 5 
S-io 
5-IO 
S-io 
S-io 
5-IO 

I2-20 

5-IO 



75-90 
85-120 
100—140 
100-140 
120—180 
100—140 
125-150 

So-75 



iln the vicinity of New York City. Each 100 miles north or south will make a differ- 
ence of 5 to 7 days later or earlier. 

2This is for sowing the seed. It will take three to six weeks before plants are 
ready. Hence the advantage of using the seed-bed. For instance, you can start your 
late cabbage about June 15th, to follow the first crop of peas, which should be cleared off 
by the loth of July. 

^Distances given are those at which the growing plants should stand, after "thin- 
ning." The seed, for crops sown in drills, should be sown several times as thick. 

*Best started in seed-bed, and afterwards transplanted; but may be sown where 
wanted and afterward thinned to the best plants. 



75 



Table of Vegetables, Varieties, and Quantity 
of Seed required for a 50-foot row 



VEGETABLE 



VARIETIES 



SEED 



Asparagus 

Bean, dwarf 

Bean, Pole 

Beet 

Broccoli 

Brussels Sprouts. . 
Cabbage 

Carrot 

Cauliflower , 

Celery 

Corn. .' , 

Cucumber 

Egg Plant 

Endive , 

Kale (or Bonesole) 

Kohlrabi 

Leek , 

Lettuce 

Melon, Musk 

Melon, Water 

Okra 

Onion 

Onion Sets 

Parsley 

Parsnip 

Peas 

Pepper 

Potato 

Pumpkin 

Radish 

Rhubarb 

Salsify 

Spinach 

Squash 

Tomato 

Turnip 



Barr's Mammoth ; Palmetto 

Extra Early Red Valentine; Improved 
Refugee; Golden Wax (lima); Burpee's; 

Golden Cluster Wax; Old Homestead 
(lima) Early Leviathan 

Edmand's Early; Eclipse; Crimson (ilLOBE 

White French (resembles cauliflower but 
hardier) 

Long Island Improved 

(Early) Jersey Wakefield; Glory of Enkhui- 
son; Early Summer; Succession; (Savoy) 
Perfection Drumhead; (Red) Mammoth 
Rock 

Early Scarlet Horn; Danvers Halflong 
Oxheart 

(Spring) Early Snowball ; (Autumn) Algiers 

(EarUest) White Plume; Golden Self- 
blanching; (best for winter) Giant Pas- 
chal 

Golden Bantam (early and sweet); Cory; 
Stowell's Evergreen 

Extra Early White Spine; Fordhook Fa 
MOUS 

Black Beauty 

Broad Leaved Batavian 

Dwarf, curled Scotch 

Early White Vienna , 

American Flag 

Big Boston; (Loose-head) Simpson; Mign- 
onette (recommended); New York; 
(Cos) Paris White 

(Green-flesh) Netted Gem; (salmon-flesh) 
Emerald Gem 

Cole's Early; Sweet Heart 

(For northern states) Perfected Perkins' 
Long-Pod; (southern states) White Vel- 
vet 

White Portugal; Red Weathersfield ; Yel- 
low Danvers; Prizetaker 

(You can get at the hardware stores) 

Emerald 

Imperial Guernsey 

(Dwarf early) Alaska; Gradtjs; Boston 
Unrivaled 

Ruby King 

Early Rose; Early Harvest; Green Moun- 
tain ; Vermont Gold Coin 

Dunkard ; Quaker Pie 

Scarlet Button ; Early White Turnip ; Crim- 
son Globe 

Myatt's Victoria 

Sandwich Island Mammoth 

Victoria; (for summer) New Zealand; (for 
continuous cutting Swiss Chard (Beet) 
is especially recommended) 

(For summer) Bush Fordhook; Delicata; 
(winter) Hubbard 

(Earliest) June Pink; Fordhook First; 
Matchless 

Petr'>wski; Golden Ball; (Rutabaga) 
P".rple-top Yellow 



50 

1 pt. 

*pt. 
1 oz. 

40 
40 



25-40 

i oz. 
25 



100 

ipt. 

i oz. 
25 
i oz. 
25 
i oz. 
J oz. 



50 

i oz. 
i oz. 



25 

i oz. 
1 pt. 
i oz. 
i oz. 

1 pt. 
25 

^pk. 
i oz. 

i ox.. 
25 
5 oz. 



i oz. 
i oz. 
20 
^ oz. 



76 



THE GARDENER'S KALENDAR 



XVII 
THE GARDENER^S KALENDAR 

THERE is nothing in the world that refreshes the 
memory like experiences that have left a strong 
impression on the mind, yet it is well, now and then, 
to anticipate the things one has to do, or may do, each 
month in the garden by having at hand a Kalendar of 
monthly garden operations, conveniently and briefly 
set forth. 

The garden beginner will find the following monthly 
reminders compiled from various sources of service to 
him, and they have been selected, as nearly as possi- 
ble, to apply to all those parts of the country where 
extremely early seasons are not to be looked for each 
succeeding year as they are to be in the South. 

JANUARY 

HAVING given thought to the planning of your 
next season's garden, and the things you may 
wish to plant in it, do not forget the important matter 
of anticipating its careful cultivation, — of the garden 
tools and implements which you will need in working 
it properly. There will be spades, hoes, lawn mowers, 
trowels, knives, sprayers, etc., to think of and to select 
from the best devices offered by progressive manufac- 

79 



THE GARDEN PRIMER 



turers. In gardening, like in everything else, good tools 
facilitate good workmanship and are great time -savers. 



Perhaps a glance out of your window over a strip 
of ground that now appears bleak and dreary to you 
will suggest that another January should find a tree, 
or a clump of shrubbery, with bright stems to give 
some sense of color and winter design to the landscape. 
It is just that difference between the monotony of 
snow-covered prairies and snow-blanketed woodlands 
that brings Nature to teach man some of her decorative 
arts. 



A clump of Spireas will bring you both color and 
decorative form in winter — SpircEa ariefolia, which 
retains its dead flower clusters a long time, a pleasant 
contrast of brown against the white snows, and Spircea 
Lindleyana, whose bright colored stems also enliven 
the lines of the gray landscape. 



Start the tuberous plants, Gloxinias and Begonias, 
now, if you would have them bloom early. Put them 
in flats, thickly together, and cover lightly with sandy 
earth. Avoid their rotting, and pot as soon as roots 
are developed. 

Winter mice and rabbits may be girdling your trees. 
If so, bind strips of tar-paper around each tree thus 
attacked, high enough, however, to be above the prob- 
able snow-line. 

80 




An old-fashioned garden of this sort was the result of one 
garden beginner's first season's experimenting 




What a garden beginner may do to beautify the walls of 

his home 




Everyone may have such a little garden as this. Hardly 
a space is too tiny for some growing things 



THE GARDENER'S KALENDAR 

These are the principal flowers whose seed may now 
be sown in the greenhouse: Pansy, Lobelia, Verbena, 
Marguerite, Carnation, Snapdragon, Petunia, Daisy, 
Forget-me-not, Wishbone Plant, Impatiens, Salvia and 
Canna. 



If there is carting and wheeling to be done around 
a place now is a good time to do it, when the ground 
is hard and the turf will not be cut up by wheels to leave 
unsightly streaks across the summer lawn. 



Plan early to order your Chrysanthemum cuttings 
so you will have good material for fall exhibition. 



It is too early of course to make hotbeds outdoors 
throughout northern states, but one may sow almost all 
kinds of vegetable seeds indoors for early crops if care 
is taken and proper light, heat and ventilation pro- 
vided. 



See that the spots in your garden where you 
have had Campanula growing are carefully pro- 
tected. 



Send to your seedsmen for catalogues if you have 
not done so already, and give careful thought to the 
contents of these, not only in the matter of selecting the 
things you like and admire, but with forethought of 
planting effects. 

8i 



THE GARDEN PRIMER 



FEBRUARY 

NOW is the time to take cuttings of your Stevia 
{Piqueria trinervia), or as soon as it is through 
its Christmas flowering. From time to time shift them 
until they are ready for 6-inch pots. Then plunge 
them outdoors in ashes when all danger of frost is past, 
turning the pots every day to keep them from rooting 
into the ground. Induce a bush form by pinching out 
the growths. Store the plants in a light cool place as 
cold weather comes on, and bring a few of them at a 
time into the flower room. Thus, in succession you 
will have the Stevia for November, December and 
January. 

Don't forget that you may have some spraying to do 
in February. 



Hotbeds will hardly be started as early as February 
in parts of the country north of Philadelphia, surely 
not near Chicago, Detroit or New York. 



If you are intending to start a Mushroom crop you 
have no time to lose now. 



Cuttings may now be taken for Paris Daisies, 
Chrysanthemums, and Begonias for October and later 
flowering. It would be well to buy small greenhouse 
plants at this time to be grown through the summer to 
maturity. 

82 



THE GARDENER'S KALENDAR 

Achimenes tubers should now be started in flats, 
in light soil, with leaf mold and sand, and sheep manure 
to enrich it. A temperature of 60 degrees will be 
required at night. 

If you are digging around your garden at any time 
remember that dug-in snow chills the soil where roots 
may be dormant, consequently they will be injured 
or killed by thoughtless treatment of this sort. 



Don't forget that your lawn needs winter care. 
Top dress it with fine manure. 



Both Gladioli and Cosmos may be started indoors 
now for early bloom and bedding plants propagated 
from stock plants. 



Place your orders early with your nurseryman if 
you would avoid disappointment in the rush for good 
plants that always seems coincident with the beginning 
of every season's rush work. 



If you procure your seeds in time you will have an 
opportunity of testing their germinating qualities before 
the regular outdoor planting season. 



Among the indoor vegetable seeds you will be 
sowing in February for outdoor transfer in May are 
lettuce, tomatoes, cabbage, eggplant, celery, onion, 
endive, radishes, parsley, etc. 

83 



THE GARDEN PRIMER 



For early vegetables start beets, cauliflower, string 
beans, kohlrabi, etc., in greenhouse or window for later 
transference to hotbeds and cold frames. 



Inspect your house-plants, especially palms and 
ferns, and if you find their roots greatly grown and 
spread, shift them to larger pots. 

MARCH 

TAKE a look around the lawn and see what repairs 
it wiU be needing, and get out your lawn tools 
for a thorough overhauling, so you may plan for others 
you may wish to order. 



If you have mulched your lawn the autumn before, 
remove this mulch the first day the frost leaves the 
ground otherwise the roots under it will take an unnat- 
ural start, which will receive a severe setback by later 
frosts. 



Examine your porch vines and tie them up with new 
fastenings where needed. 



Look over your garden paths and walks and plan 
their betterment. Flagstone and fiat stepping-stones 
can be employed usefully for these. 



Nitrate of soda as well as common salt will help 
the growth of your rhubarb and asparagus if put on the 
beds in March. 

84 



THE GARDENER'S KALENDAR 

You may prune your Hydrangeas, Dogwood and 
Elders now, and if you have forgotten to prune your 
grape-vines it is better to do it now than not at all. 
Hybrid perpetual Roses may be pruned back to one 
or two feet as soon as frost leaves the ground. 



By March 15th it will be well to uncover your bulb 
beds and also your hardy borders. 



Put boxes and barrels around your rhubarb plants 
after the snow has gone, and put manure over them. 
At night they should have a top covering. 

Sow inside under cover Bachelor Buttons, Calendula, 
Drummond Phlox, French Marigolds, double Petunias, 
Lantana, Cannas, Coleas, Heliotrope (for budding out), 
Ostrich Plume Chrysanthemums and Chaubaud Carna- 
tions (for October and later flowering), Ardisia (for 
bloom next spring, and berry fruit the Christmas after), 
Dahlias (to flower this season) , among other flowers. 



Lily-of-the- Valley pips should be started right away, 
in time for Easter bloom. Your Snowdrops, Scillas, 
Crocus, Hepaticas, Magnolias and English daisies 
should be blooming this month. Bring forth the rest 
of your bulbs from the cellar. 



Magnolias of all varieties, hybrid Rhododendrons 
and Mountain Laurel should be set out only in the 
spring, and then as soon as the ground may be worked. 

85 



THE GARDEN PRIMER 



Orchard trees may be transplanted as soon as the 
ground will work up to a fine and mellow soil. They 
should never be put into a sticky mortar-like soil. 
Deciduous trees and shrubs may now be set out. 



Remember that all your spraying should be finished 
by the middle of April. 



Sow lettuce, globe artichokes in cold-frames and 
hotbeds, beets, carrots, onions, tomatoes, egg-plant and 
peppers in flats; also thin out those already up which 
you started earlier. 

If you sow parsley now indoors you will have a good 
April crop. Before planting parsley seed soak it in 
warm water for a day, as it is very slow to germinate. 



If the season is a very early one get your Sweet Pea 
seeds into the ground early. 



Fork asparagus beds lightly, first spreading well- 
rotted manure or bone meal on the ground. 

APRIL 

SET out Standard Box and Box-edging early. 
Where Box-edging has been set out the j^ax 
before, it can be pruned somewhat before growth 
begins in April. All varieties of hedges may be set out 
this month. 

86 



THE GARDENER'S KALENDAR 

This is the month for planting deciduous trees, 
shrubs and vines, fruit and nut trees (especially dwarf 
varieties) and small-fruit bushes. 



Fertilize asparagus bed and rhubarb patch with 
nitrate of soda. 



Prune grape-vines and fruit trees, but not small- 
fruit bushes. 



Examine your shade trees and if you fin^ any 
cavities of decay in their trunks clean these out and 
fill up with cement. 

Look to the matter of this month's spraying, and do 
not neglect any part of your garden. 



You will need to divide roots of your perennials 
in the hardy border this month. 



You can plant all evergreens this month. 



Remove winter mulching from your strawberry bed. 



Tender roses may be pruned late in the month; 
also spray them with whale-oil soap. 



Have your coldframes ready for transferring to 
them tender vegetables and flowers from the hotbed for 
hardening by the middle of the month. 

87 



THE GARDEN PRIMER 



If you sow seeds of perennial flowers now in cold- 
frames they will bloom their first year. 



Plough or spade the garden as soon as the surplus 
moisture from departing frosts is out of the ground. 



Spray seedling Hollyhocks with Bordeaux mixture. 



Sow Sweet Peas as soon as the ground can be worked, 
and also Love-in-a-Mist {Nigella Damascena) for the 
garden border. 

Start your Cannas in the hotbed. 



Prepare labels for the seeds you will be planting. 



Look over your garden tools and see that they are 
all in good condition, and sharpen those which need it. 



This is a good time to build a birdhouse, for birds 
are friends to your garden oftener than enemies. But 
for them many of your plants would be killed by the 
insects the birds destroy. 

MAY 

BE prepared against late frosts but do not rush 
the season, though you should plan not to be 
behindhand with anything. When all danger from 
frost is past transplant your tender flowers and vege- 
tables from hotbed to garden. 

88 



THE GARDENER'S KALENDAR 

Now is the time to sow everything required for 
succession, late Peas, Beans, Cabbage for late use, 
Cucumber, Radish, late Broccoli, Winter Kale, Vege- 
table Marrow, Brussels Sprouts, Horn Carrot and 
Main Crop Carrots, Spinach, Turnip, Beet, Parsley, 
Colewort, Onion, Lettuce, Cauliflower, Parsnip, Ridge 
Cucumber. Also Phlox Drummondii, Marigold, Cal- 
ceolaria, Ten-week Stock, Cineraria, Primula, Orna- 
mental Grasses, Grass Seed and Aster. 



Remember to spray your orchard trees as soon as 
the petals fall from the blossoms. 



The middle of the month is the time to spray your 
rose bushes with whale-oil soap, and the last week in 
May they should receive liquid manurial stimulant. 



Mulch your strawberries just before they bloom. 



Sow all hardy annuals and transplant such as you 
have had started in coldframes in March, which have 
been hardened off. It is not too late to sow tender 
annuals in coldframes for later transplanting. 



Shift perennials, and rearrange border plants. 
This can be done with safety by the end of the month. 



This is a good time to think about flower-boxes for 
porch and windows. 

89 



THE GARDEN PRIMER 



Gladioli planted this month will bloom in August. 



Look out for cut-worms that will be appearing in 
your garden soon. Dig them up and kill them as soon 
as you find any of your young plants dying without any 
apparent reason. Cut-worms are probably chewing 
at the roots. 



Carnations may be taken from the greenhouse for 
outdoor planting the latter part of the month. 



Plant Sunflowers, if only for the sake of such useful 
birds as the Goldfinch and Nuthatch. 



Now is the time to plant hardy border plants, 
Alpines, Climbers, and especially Gladioli, Gaillardias, 
Pyrethrums (cut back for late flowering). Delphiniums 
(cut back for late flowering). Geraniums, Chrysanthe- 
mums, Hollyhocks, Clematises, Ivies, Passion Flowers, 
Dahlias, Calceolarias, Phloxes, Pentstemons, Cannas. 
Also Potatoes, Broccoli, Brussels Sprouts, Celery and 
Lettuce. 



After the grass is well started fertilize your lawn 
with pulverized sheep manure. 

Remember that just after they finish blooming is 
the time to prune all spring-flowering shrubs. 

Spray your Elms now and thus begin the fight against 
the Elm-leaf beetle. 

90 



THE GARDENER'S KALENDAR 

JUNE 

WATCH the newly set trees and vines to see that 
they start right. Rub off all shoots on bodies 
and at base, also surplus shoots on branches. Allow 
only one or, at most, two shoots to grow on grape vines. 
Keep soil stirred or mulched about trees and vines. 
Treat as weeds all shoots from the blackberries and 
raspberries and other suckering things except such as 
are needed for new plants. Keep blossoms and run- 
ners from newly set strawberries. Pinch tips of "cap" 
raspberries when two feet high. Watch out for currant 
worms on currants and gooseberries, rose beetles on 
roses, grapes, plum and cherry trees. 



June is the month of belated things and of the begin- 
ning of the forward look. Plant more flower-seeds 
for later display; start Coleus cuttings to fill in unex- 
pected gaps; sow Perilla, Dwarf Nasturtiums and 
''Rose Moss" (Portulaca) seeds in semishady places to 
take the places of failing early annuals; sow winter 
stock seed to take up in autumn for the window garden; 
start seeds of biennials and perennials for the following 
year's blossoming bedders — Heucheras, Campanulas, 
Anchusas, etc. 



For late crop sow beets, carrots, potatoes, and for 
succession radishes, sweet corn, beans, and turnips. 
Transplant cabbages, cauliflowers, tomatoes, celery, 
peppers. 

91 



THE GARDEN PRIMER 



Look out for cut-worms in your garden beds. , 

Spray for garden pests. Spray berry bushes and 
fruit trees twice in June. 



June is the critical gardening time — you must weed 
and cultivate carefully and persistently for successful 
results. 



Privet hedges may be trimmed this month. 
Plant Dahlias and Gladioli. 



Begin to tie up Tomato vines. 

Set out Cabbage and Cauliflower plants in rich soil. 
Well drained clay soil is best for Cabbage. 

Tender annuals planted after June ist will develop 
with wonderful rapidity. 

JULY 

CUT back hybrid perpetual Roses about six inches 
after June bloom is over and with fertilizing and 
cultivating a second crop of blossoms may result in the 
same season. 



Plant Artichokes the middle of the month. 



Keep your flowering plants such as Chrysanthe- 
mums, Cosmos and Dahlias to a compact bushy growth 
by "pinching." 

92 



THE GARDENER'S KALENDAR 



As fast as you find suckers forming on fruit trees 
remove them at once. 



Keep Sweet Peas, Marigolds, and other flowering 
annuals picked, for their plants will soon cease to 
bloom if allowed to go to seed. 



You may have dwarf Asters for late bloom in window 
boxes for the autumn if seed of these is sown now. 



Harvest early vegetables and rework and replant 
soil for late crops. 

AUGUST 

THIS is a good time to plant Evergreens and thus 
avoid the rush of spring work. Do not wait 
until September to do this, as the plants, set out now, 
will get a firmer hold on the soil before winter sets in. 

Sow perennials in coldframes, which will prevent 
the seeds from being washed out of the earth by late 
rains. 



Carnations that have been growing outside in the 
garden must now be brought indoors. 

Easter Lilies may be potted this month for forcing. 
They should be kept in a cool, dark place until they 
are thoroughly rooted. 

Cut out the old canes from your berry bushes. 

93 



THE GARDEN PRIMER 



SEPTEMBER 

THIS is the time to establish new beds, which may 
be filled with the thinnings from the hardy 
perennials. Do not, however, move hardy Chrysan- 
themums, Anemone Japonica, Yuccas, late Tritomas, 
Magnolias or Altheas; these are best moved in April. 
The young plants of Hollyhocks, Foxglove, hardy Gail- 
lardia. Sweet William, and Clove Pinks if not trans- 
planted by September 20th should be left undisturbed 
until spring. 

Perennials which are now being grown in boxes 
from the seed should, by the 15th of the month, be 
planted in the garden where they are to bloom. Protect 
them in the winter with a light covering of straw or 
manure; that will keep them from being affected by 
sudden changes of the weather. 



In the border or among shrubs there can be no more 
attractive flower than the Larkspur (Delphinium), 
There is both the annual and perennial, and the shades 
of flower bloom are almost numberless, including light, 
dark, and azure-blue, white, buff, rose, apple-bloom, 
pink, brick-red, red-lilac, dark-lilac, violet, and fawn. 
The seed of either the annual or perennial should be 
sown now in the open. Germination will take place 
early in the spring and remarkably early growth and 
bloom will be secured. It is almost difficult to go 
wrong in the selection of a variety — that should be left 



94 



THE GARDENER'S KALENDAR 

to the individual preference of colors and whether single, 
semi-double or double blooms are desired. A bed of 
Larkspur is strikingly effective in almost any garden. 
It makes a good cut flower, and the plants will bloom 
almost continually if the blooms are removed as they 
fade. 



No ironclad rule for every section of the country at 
once can be made as to when and how to prune shrubs. 
In a general way such as bloom before midsummer 
produce flowers on wood grown the previous year, and 
these should be pruned immediately after flowering, 
as to prune them in the spring would be to cut away the 
wood which would produce blooms. Such as bloom 
after midsummer can be pruned in the spring as they 
produce flowers on wood made the same season. All 
pruning that is essential to shrubs is such as is necessary 
to keep the plants in symmetrical shape and to admit 
unobstructed circulation of air and sunshine. 



When massed in beds or borders Peonies are at their 
best. This is, however, open to some objection as they 
are in bloom for only a month. If used in connection 
with other plants, such as Asters, Gladioli, late-blooming 
Cosmos, or Lilies, perhaps more satisfaction would be 
had. Despite the short season of bloom the foliage 
of the peony remains vigorous and green during the 
summer and fall months. 

After the blooming season is over work into the soil 
about the roots of each plant a handful or so of pulver- 

95 



THE GARDEN PRIMER 



ized sheep manure. After the ground is well frosted 
apply a mulch of stable manure of five or six inches 
thickness and let it remain until spring. That will 
prevent the alternate freezing and thawing of the ground 
near the roots. It is the freezing and thawing, and not 
the freezing itself, that damages or destroys the plants. 
In the spring when the mulch is removed work into 
the ground another application of pulverized sheep 
manure. Pulverized sheep manure is best, as no other 
fertilizer appears to contain all the requisite essentials 
to produce such luxurious and bounteous growth. 



About the next most important phase of the garden 
work will be the fall planting of bulbs, both for indoor 
and outdoor culture. If bulb culture is to be carried 
on even to only a limited extent, there are some neces- 
sary primary preparations to be looked after. It is 
just as well to arrange these preliminaries now. 

Failures are usually due to lack of proper treatment 
both in planting and culture. Get together a liberal 
supply of proper soil and a supply of pots. Have the 
soil very rich, loamy and free from small stones. A 
liberal quantity of powdered charcoal will be a desirable 
addition, as it acts both as an aid to drainage and puri- 
fies the soil, preventing souring. If the new catalogues 
have been received it is a good time to begin considering 
a selection, and in making the selection keep in mind the 
fact that small bulbs should be grouped; half a dozen 
or more planted together give more satisfactory results 
than when the same number are planted singly. It is 

96 



THE GARDENER'S KALENDAR 

only bulbs that produce large flowers and foliage that 
make a fairly presentable appearance when grown 
singly. Soft-baked, porous, wide-mouthed, shallow 
pots are usually preferable for bulb culture. 



This will doubtless prove one of the most trying 
months of the year on the lawn. To keep it at all 
decent looking frequent use of the hose will in all 
probability be necessary. In using the hose do not 
simply sprinkle, but wet the sod. It is a mooted ques- 
tion as to whether mere sprinkling does not do more 
harm than good, especially if the sprinkling is followed 
by a hot sun. 

Save all possible material about the garden for 
mulch. Lawn clippings, chopped straw or leaves, and 
old flower stems cut small, will be found useful. Any 
of this material placed about plants, leaving space 
around the roots to admit air, will prove of great assist- 
ance in the retention of moisture. A hot or dry 
Vv^eather mulch is intended to keep the sun's rays from 
the upper sod but not to shut out the air. 



In northern sections Jack Frost is to be looked for 
this month. 



If any particular choice plant about the yard shows 
signs of distress from the heat or drought, remove a 
few inches of the top soil around it, leaving a narrow 
rim about the plant however, and then make a few 
holes with a sharp stick, leading towards the roots. 

97 



THE GARDEN PRIMER 



Pour water into the cavity made by the removal of the 
top soil until the ground has soaked up so much water 
that no more will soak away. Crumble the removed 
soil as finely as possible and place it back into its former 
place, but do not pack it. This simple process will 
often save some valuable and rare plant. 

OCTOBER 

THE bare spots in the lawn should be looked after. 
Loosen the bare places with a sharp rake and 
then treat them to a dressing of pulverized sheep manure, 
and seed liberally. After seeding, again rake over the 
surface so that the seed will be well covered. This 
should be followed by the use of the roller to smooth 
the surface. The finer the soil can be made before 
seeding, the better will be the result in securing a good 
stand of grass. If the lawn is well cared for, properly 
fertilized, and kept closely mown, the sod will improve 
from year to year. Many gardeners think that the 
grass should be let grow rather tall about this time of 
the year to make a protection for the roots. This is a 
mistake; the lawn should be kept closely mown until 
the grass ceases to grow. If left to get tall a great 
deal of the grass will die out during the winter and this 
long grass will have to be raked out by hand in the 
spring before the lawn can be made to take on a fresh 
appearance. If closely mown late in the fall it will 
start into growth very early the following spring. 
Bone dust and pulverized sheep manure, preferably the 

98 



THE GARDENER'S KALENDAR 

latter, make good lawn fertilizers. It is not necessary 
to have the lawn unsightly all the winter months through 
the use of coarse stable straw-manure. Give a good 
top dressing of pulverized sheep manure — that is suffi- 
cient. 



October is the best time of the year in which to 
plant ornamental trees and shrubs, except in localities 
where the winters are extremely severe. In the selec- 
tion of both ornamental trees and shrubs regard must 
be had for the adaptability of the subject to the climatic 
conditions existing where it is to be planted. In plant- 
ing always make the hole at least a foot wider than the 
root area of the specimen, and the depth according to the 
depth of its root system. If the earth at the bottom is a 
stiff hard clay, or a gravelly hard-pan, it should be 
broken up to a depth of a foot or more and a goodly 
portion of sods and manure incorporated with it. 
If the soil where the tree or shrub is being set is poor, 
a good compost of well rotted manure, leaf mold, and 
sods should be thrown in and dug in to a depth of six 
inches or more. 



Sweet Pea seed planted now to lie dormant in the 
ground all winter will give much earlier bloom than 
the earliest spring planting. Fall planting is especially 
desirable for well drained, light, sandy soils, as the vines 
start early in the spring and come into flower much 
earlier than they would in a heavier soil, where they 
make a much stronger growth. The period of Sweet 

99 



THE GARDEN PRIMER 



Pea blooming may be very much extended by placing 
a mulch of fine straw or grass about the roots, keeping 
them well watered and the blooms picked off. It is 
well to keep in mind that sweet peas will not do well 
planted in the same soil two years in succession. But 
if they are desired in the same location the trench 
method can be resorted to — the old soil taken out and 
the trench refilled with new soil and manure. Sunlight 
and fresh air in abundance are essential to successful 
sweet pea development. In the shade the vines will 
make a tall growth, little foliage, and less flowers; in 
damp places the foliage is apt to mildew and the vines 
die off without flowering. Shade and prepare the 
ground properly, having it in a fine loose condition, 
putting on a liberal application of well rotted bam 
manure, or pulverized sheep manure, before spading. 
Use a liberal quantity of seed to make sure of a good 
stand — one ounce to fifteen feet of row is sufficient — 
and, when well started, thin out the young vines until 
they stand from four to six inches apart. Light two- 
inch-mesh poultry wire makes a very convenient sup- 
port for the vines. A better and more satisfactory 
way of supporting the vines is to drive stout round stakes, 
four or five feet high, every four or five feet along the 
row, and then run light jute twine from stake to stake, 
commencing a few inches from the ground and putting 
the twine about six inches apart on the stakes. The 
best support for the sweet pea vine, however, is brush 
cut from the ends of tree limbs or from young bushes. 

100 



THE GARDENER'S KALENDAR 

These when firmly planted in the soil allow the vines 
to grow in a more open way than the trellis made of 
either wire or twine. The support for the vines should 
be provided before or as soon after planting as possible 
so that the first tendrils may attach themselves firmly 
to the supports. Commence cultivation as soon as the 
plants are above the surface and continue it during the 
entire season. About the only thing to be done is to 
keep the soil loose and fine for a depth of two or three 
inches. Frequent workings keep out weeds and admit 
the air more freely to the roots, and keep the soil in 
the best condition for plant growth. During dry 
weather thoroughly soak the roots of the vines twice 
a week. Do not allow seed pods to form on the vines, 
and keep all faded or dried flowers picked off. Cutting 
the branches or tips of the vines back occasionally 
will induce them to branch and thus prolong the season 
of bloom. 



Childhood recollections of spring flowers are usually 
associated with the fragrant Hyacinth. The florists 
have not been able to supplant or even approximate it 
for early out door flowering. Delightful effect can be 
had by massing different varieties that grow approx- 
imately the same height and bloom at the same time. 
Now is the time to plant Hyacinths in the open. They 
do best in light soil with sunny exposure, and where the 
soil is naturally heavy it should be lightened by the 
addition of sand. Spade the bed to a depth of twelve 
or fourteen inches, letting it rise only very slightly above 

lOI 



THE GARDEN PRIMER 



the level of the walk. Plant the bulbs evenly at a depth 
of about six inches. To plant them at uneven depths 
is sure to produce irregular blooming. The bulbs 
should be set from six to eight inches apart and care 
should be taken not to firm the soil too much around 
and over them. To set each bulb in a handful of clean 
sand is a guarantee of proper drainage. After the 
ground freezes cover the bed with a few inches of dry 
litter, evergreen boughs, or straw manure which should 
remain through the winter. 

The Hyacinth is equally desirable for pot culture. 
For this purpose the large varieties should be chosen. 
They should be set singly in 5-inch, or smaller pots; 
a 7-inch pot will carry three bulbs very effectively. 
The best potting soil can be had by using two parts of 
fibrous loam to one part of pulverized sheep manure, 
with the addition of a little powdered charcoal. First 
fill the pot and then press the bulb into the soil, leaving 
about one-third of the bulb exposed. Bury the pot 
in the ground with its top about six inches under the 
surface and leave it in the open five or six weeks, by 
which time it will be well filled with roots. It can then 
be taken into the house where it will soon be brought 
into flower by the warmth. Continue to pot until the 
end of November for a succession of bloom. Supply 
plenty of water, and when the flower-spikes appear 
hasten development by the application of liquid manure. 



Both for beauty of form and brilliancy of coloring 
there is no flower that equals the Tulip. It is admirably 



102 



THE GARDENER'S KALENDAR 

adapted for the border around the house. By the har- 
monious massing of contrasting colors the most gor- 
geous effects can be produced. Tulips are also inval- 
uable for pot culture. The color of bloom and height 
of growth are usually given by the nurseryman and 
that makes it an easy matter to select just v^^hat is 
wanted. The cultural directions given for the Hyacinth 
are equally applicable to the Tulip. However, as the 
bulbs are smaller they should not be planted quite so 
deep. Four inches to the bottom of the bulb set in the 
open is enough ^ while the distance between the bulbs 
can be four to six inches. A 5-inch pot will contain 
satisfactorily from three to five bulbs. The double 
Tulips generally come into bloom later than the single 
variety, though there are some late flowering single ones. 



Add the Narcissus to your selection of fall planting 
for spring flowering. They are very easy of cultivation 
and do well in almost any soil and situation, but prefer- 
ably in stiff soil and shaded location. The Narcissus 
is grown extensively in pots for winter cut flowers and 
requires practically the same treatment as has been 
suggested for Hyacinths and Tulips. The Jonquil is 
related to the Narcissus and is suitable alike for pot 
culture or planting in the open. 



If a Rose bed is planted now, good bloom may 
reasonably be expected next spring. The plants may 
be set out any time before the ground freezes hard with 
prefect safety, but should be mulched when real winter 

103 



THE GARDEN PRIMER 



weather sets in. The White American Beauty is one 
of the best white Roses grown, and is hardy everywhere. 
The General Jacqueminot is a very desirable red rose. 
There is no finer pink rose than the Paul Neyron. 
For a dark crimson, the darkest of all, Prince Camille 
DeRohan sets the pace. Hardy climbing roses, of 
which there are many varieties, should be planted 
during the autumn. 

Manure the garden and plough it under this month. 



Rake up fallen leaves, and save them as a mulch for 
covering flowers and shrubs. Hard-wood leaves like 
oak and chestnut are especially good. 

NOVEMBER 

THERE is considerable work now necessary about 
the vegetable garden and in the orchard. If a 
shade tree is needed to be set, now is the time to trans- 
plant it. If a fruit tree is desired, put it out now; 
or if one already out is found to be diseased, remove 
it and replant at this time. Between the falling of the 
leaves and the freezing of the ground is the best time for 
planting trees. 

It is a good plan to rake the top earth for about an 
inch in depth, from around fruit trees and make an 
application of air-slaked lime. Let this remain exposed 
for about two weeks, then replace the top soil and mulch 
for winter protection. 

104 



THE GARDENER'S KALENDAR 

Have a general cleaning up about the yard and save 
all leaves instead of burning them. Incorporate these 
with lime and rakings into a compost heap. The com- 
post will be found both convenient and useful for broad- 
casting before spading the vegetable garden in the 
spring. 



Plants of lettuce, cauliflower, cabbage, etc., that 
are to winter over for early spring settings should be 
put into the coldframe. 

By giving the lettuce bed protection in the way of a 
covering with an old sheet or straw held above the 
plants, nice heads of lettuce may be had in the open 
until Christmas. 

Beets, carrots, turnips, celery, and late potatoes 
should be stored in a cool dry cellar for winter use. 



As the beds are cleared of existing crops they should 
be thoroughly composted and dug over. Then sow, 
broadcast or in drills, com salad, kale and spinach, 
and enjoy them for early spring use. 



The strawberry bed should have attention now. 
The plants should be thinned out and the beds heavily 
mulched. 

Transplant the red raspberry, and mulch heavily 
when the ground freezes hard. 



Lilies and other flowers grown from hardy bulbs, 
which are to be left in the ground all winter, should 

105 



THE GARDEN PRIMER 



always be planted on beds slightly raised above the sur- 
rounding ground to insure proper drainage throughout 
the year. When the tops die down cut the stems off 
and cover the beds two or three inches deep with 
leaves, or long, strawy manure to guard against sudden 
changes of freezing and thawing. 



There are a great many flowers that do better from 
seed planted in the fall of the year. The Carnation is 
hardy and the plants from seed sown in the fall will 
bloom next season. Others, among those of which 
the seed can now be sown to advantage, are the Holly- 
hock, Chrysanthemum (perennial). Phlox, Poppy 
(Oriental), Aster (hardy Alpine), Campanula (Canter- 
bury Bells), Aquilegia (Columbine), Digitalis (Fox- 
glove), and Primula (vulgaris). Pansy seeds are 
planted largely in the open ground in the fall for 
spring bloom. An examination of the autumn cata- 
logues issued by the nurserymen and seedsmen will 
enable one to extend this list for fall planting. Send 
for catalogues and enjoy one of the greatest pleas- 
ures of gardening — the pleasure of anticipation. 



When the cool nights blight the foliage of the tuber- 
ous-rooted Begonias, the plants should be dug up, the 
tops removed and the roots allowed to dry gradually 
in a cool, sheltered place. When thoroughly dry and 
ripened, clean off the small rootlets, wrap each bulb 
in soft cotton, and store them in a moderately warm 
place until spring. 

io6 



THE GARDENER'S KALENDAR 

A great many hardy perennials do best when planted 
at this season of the year. They get well established 
during the winter and are ready to start growing with 
the spring. Prepare the ground well before setting 
them out ; spade to a depth of eighteen or twenty inches, 
and generously enrich the soil. The perennial flower- 
ing pea (Lathyrus) , Blanket Flower {Gaillardia grandi- 
flora), Peonies, Japanese, German and English Iris, 
and Hollyhocks, are among the large variety of old- 
fashioned garden flowers which can now be planted 
to great advantage. 



When the tops of flowers grown from bulbs, such 
as Gladioli, Dahlias, etc., die down, the tops should 
be cut off an inch or so above the surface of the ground, 
the bulbs dug and dried in a cool place. When well 
ripened, store in a warm room or cellar for the winter. 
If the place where storage is to be made is not perfectly 
dry and frost-proof, pack the roots in boxes or barrels, 
covering with dry sand or any other suitable material 
which will prevent shriveling or freezing, 

DECEMBER 

EVERY tree, shrub and vine about the garden will 
be vastly benefited by a liberal mulching at this 
time. With what to mulch should not be a troublesome 
question. Foliage of aU kinds has been falling, is now 
almost through falling, and should be raked together 
and applied about the trees and shrubs to prevent 

107 



THE GARDEN PRIMER 



damage from alternate freezing and thawing of the 
ground. The new leaves can be held in place about the 
roots of plants by throwing over them a few spadefuls of 
coarse manure or rich earth. Besides the practical 
utility of the fallen and decaying foliage as a mulch, 
the garden will be left in a much more presentable con- 
dition when it has been gathered up. 



It is better to prune grape-vines now than to wait till 
spring, as the vines pruned in March will be more 
liable to be damaged. 



Bank up the plants outside in order that alternate 
freezing and thawing will not winter-kill them. 



If tent caterpillars have bothered your garden the 
past season, cut down any wild cherry trees around you, 
for these are sure to attract these insect pests. 



Coldframes for such flowers as Violets, and for the 
plants must be covered at night. Use straw mats and 
wooden shutters for this. 



Saw off dead limbs from your trees. 



Cut off tops of all perennials, and give a light mulch 
to all those requiring protection, but be careful not to 
use heavy manure. 

io8 



THE GARDENER'S KALENDAR 

This is the time of the year when all vines should be 
given assistance in the way of protection from the snows 
and ice formations. They should be gone over and 
carefully tied to some support so that they will not be 
broken or otherwise injured by the weight of snow and 
ice. If it is necessary to put up a post or stake for 
support do not hesitate to do so. There are more 
sightly things than stakes driven up through the yard, 
but the unsightliness is more than compensated for by 
the good results. 



log 



XVIII 
TABLE OF SPRAYING FOR GARDEN PESTS 



Table of First and Second Spraying 

With Key to Insecticides and 

Fungicides to Use 





a 




0) 





a. 
o 




w 


5h 


6-^ 


< 


fii 


Oi 


w w 


CO 
Q 
O 




C/3 




^ di 




w^ 




£^ 















V) 

•^ O O O cU J^ " 

d) a> 0) ^^ 
C G C ^^ ^ 



O ^ 



p. 
o 



fe-s 



3 '-I 



K Ui Wi 

(U 0) 0) (U 

c > > > 

(U 0) 0) ■ ' 'tj 

a c n c c '^ a 

0) OJ 0) <U D +j 0) 

^ ^ ^ ^ ^ W ^ 



^' g rt S O S 
O C C ^^'^ C5 

fc-. ^ s ^ ^ <^ 



QJ > oj bjO 
. o 2 O-^ 

<1^ o w ^ a 









<D ^ 0) 

gill 



W ,U M Qj 

>MJ >^ O 

OJ <U C3 (U 

^ d *-< d *-< 

a; a> P q3 ^ 

(DO 

he he 

O SI (U 



odd ^r^ d dr^ ?^^ d ?:^d ^d 
Sd^ ^ ^wji^^w ^ wx: ^^ ^^ 



o 

C/3 



fe 






oj 



0) (I) (u 



d -p d 



bc 



'd.'T^'d 

D <U 0) 
Wh Vh Wi 

o o o 

M-( ^-1 «+-l 

a> <u OJ 



Vh d C o 'S 

d d d d vj ii 

(U <U 0) D o o 
j3 X! J2 J3 '^-i '+-' 

r^ r^ r^ r— I ^y jj^ 



15 fe: ^ 

tl {> (U 

Id o -M 

^ biDrt; 



aoj 
oj t^ 



d d 



d PIS 

bfit/3 (u ?: 

d ^ ao "^ « « 

t:) vh <^^ rH-dT:) 

Vj Vh _, ^3 d v-i Wi 
O O -S ^ <l^ O O 

pqpQpq^^^^pqpq ^ ^p m pq >^ h ^ PQ PQ 



d-^ 

X! w 

d 



tUD 0} 

d jj 

d <=^ 



^ d a d 
•f;; <u ^ a> 



P4 






O _. O '-' w O 









^ <U . 

^o^^?a |§b^ 



0) 

(U <U fl 

O 2 OJ 






w 



03 ^ 



o3 



: ^ 



0) (U <L> rd o 



13 o3 O 



C : 

,P^ 

^ ^ 03 

!/) 03 rj 



cr o 



ooSp^pHti^P^OH cyp^ p^ c/D c/2 H 



112 



Table of Third and Fourth Spraying 

With Key to Insecticides and 

Fungicides to Use 









< 
Pi 




5r5 CO w 03 

rj OJ 0) M-l 



g M m 
d) <U ■+-! 03 o3 «+-i 
5i 5^ (U ^ _H (D 

f> t^ < H H < ►-^W t— »H {>• I 



2 <^d;« 



w 



o 



« rC ^'^OOir^Os ^ On 0^ 



>% 

t 



(U u 



tuOO 



,Q+^ 



I: ^ 



n*r O"^"-! 3 v^ ^1 s. w P< O 



a"C 



03^. =5 



iH O ^, 



, w. y w t! 

o3 "tJ o3 o3 o3 "j 
V- ^ <U <U <U 1^ O 



03 






: >. : . 

•t: : : 

• '^ A O 

• & !2 ^ 
•!> ^ 2 S 

W 05 d G 
Q u ^^ 



p^ p^^ o3o3ddJli^OV-*'(U<U<U,^O^ra "^^J CT^^ 

<j<pQoooooQooSpHPia^(iHPHap^ p^wwH 



113 



INDEX. 



Achimenes, 83. 

Agriculture, Department of, 30, 
36. 

Agricultural Experiment Sta- 
tion, State, 35. 

air, factor in soil, 8. 

altitude, effect of, on plants, 5. 

annuals, half-hardy, 4; hardy, 
3 ; planting, 89 ; tender, 4. 

aphids, 49, 59. 

apple, 40. 

April garden operations, 86. 

asparagus, 84. 

Aster, 89, 93. 

athracnose, 54, 60. 

August garden operations, 95. 

bedding, 94. 

biennials, hardy, 3; tender, 4. 

birds, 88, 90. 

blight, 53. 

bulbs, 96, 102, 103, 105, 107. 

cabbage-worm, 56. 

calendar of garden operations, 

79- 
Campanula, 65, 81. 
Carnation, 81, 90, 93, 106. 
cherry, 40. 
Chrysanthemum, 81. 
clay loam,, 10. 
Clematis, 42. 
climatic conditions, 6. 
climbers, 5. 



coldframe, 45, 50, 51, 87, 89, 105. 

Columbine, 65. 

common names of plants, 14. 

Cosmos, 83. 

cotyledons, 19. 

cultivation, 25. 

currant, 41. 

cuttings, 82. 

cutworm, 56, 59, 92. 

Cypress vine, 12. 

Dahlia, 91. 

Daisy, 81. 

December garden operations, 

107. 
Delphinium, 94. 
Department of Agriculture, 30, 

36. 
dibble, 21, 22. 
diseases, plant, 54. 
divisions of plants, 13. 

Easter Lilies, 93. 
evergreens, 42 ; hedges, 42. 

fall sowing, 106, 107. 
February garden operations, 82. 
fertilizing, 29. 
fertilizers, 29; complete, 32; 

essentials of, 32; sources of, 

32. 
flats, 16. 
float, 17. 
flower gardening, 64. 



IIS 



flower-beds, 2. 

flower planting-table, 68, 69. 

Forget-me-not, 81. 

Forsythia, 41. 

frost, 88, 97. 

fruits, orchard, 86; small, 40; 

tree, 40. 
fungicides, 53, 57. 
fungi spores, 54. 

garden, flower, 63, vegetable, 71. 
garden operations : January, 79 ; 

February, 82; March, 84; 

April, 86; May, 88; June, 

91; July 92; August, 95; 

September, 94; October, 98; 

November, 104 ; December, 

107. 
garden-making, first steps in, i. 
garden-paths, 84. 
garden-pests, 53. 
garden-tools, 61, 62. 
germination of seed, 94. 
girdling, 80. 
Gladioli, 83^ 90. 
grapes, 83. 

.half-hardy annuals, 4; peren- 
nials, 3. 

hardy annuals, 3 ; perennials, 3. 

hedges, evergreen 42; 86. 

Hibiscus, 41. 

Hollyhocks, 53, 88. 

Honeysuckle, 41. 

hotbed, 45 ; ventilation, 49 ; 
sash, 46; spraying, 49; tem- 
perature, 48. 

house-plants, 84. 

Hyacinth, loi. 

Hydrangea, 41. 

indoor sowing, 16; flower- 
seeds, 85 ; vegetable seeds, 83. 
Ipomcea, 12. 
insecticides, 53, 58. 



insect pests, 55, 108. 

insects, chewing, 55; sucking, 

55. 

January garden operations, 79. 
June garden operations, 91. 

Kalendar of garden operations, 
79. 

landscape features, 2. 

Larkspur, 95. 

Latin names of plants, 11. 

latitude, effect of, on plants, 5. 

lawn, 83, 97, 98. 

Lilac, 41. 

Lily-of-the-Valley, 85. 

lime dressing, 9. 

liquid spraying, 53. 

loam, 8; clay, 10; sandy, 10. 

Lobelia, 81. 

Lonicera, 41. 

Manure, for border beds, 95; 

garden, 104; hotbed, 47, 48; 

lawn, 104 ; sandy soil, 9. 
March garden operations, 84. 
Marguerite, 81. 
maturing plants, requirements 

of, 25. 
May garden operations, 88. 
Moonflower, 12. 
Morning Glory, 12. 
mulching, 84, 87, 89, 96, 97, 104. 

names of plants, 11 ; common, 

14; Latin, 11. 
Narcissus, 103. 
Nasturtium, 91. 
nomenclature, 11. 
November garden operations, 1 

104. 

October garden operations, 98. j 
orchard fruits, 86. 



116 



orchard trees, transplanting, 

86, 104. 
outdoor sowing, 89. 

paths, garden, 84. 

Pansy, 81. 

peach, 40. 

pear, 40. 

Peony, 95. 

perennials, from seed 3 ; half- 
hardy, 3 ; hardy, 3 ; tender, 4. 

pests, insect, 59; fungous, 60; 
garden, 53. 

Petunia, 81. 

Phlox, 12, 13. 

plant-diseases, 54. 

plant-food, 30; in water, 31. 

planting, annuals, 89; for suc- 
cession, 89; hardy borders, 
90; scheme, 2. 

planting table, of flowers, 68, 
69; of vegetables, 74, 75, 76. 

plants, 25; sorts of, 3. 

plum, 40. 

Poppies, transplanting, 4. 

Portulaca, 91. 

pruning, ZT, 85, 87, 90, 95; 
reason for, 2il\ trees, 42. 

raspberry, 41. 

recipes, fungicide, 59; insecti- 
cide, 58. 
Roses, 41, 89, 103, 104- 
rhubarb, 84,, 85. 

sandy loam, 10. 

seed, annuals, 3, 5 ; biennials, 
3, s; perennials, 3, 5; cata- 
logues, II ; soaked to promote 
germination, 12, 94; self- 
sowing, 6. 

seed-sowing, directions, 15, 16, 
19, 24; depth to plant, 16; in 
flats, 16. 

seedlings, 21; fresh, 22; trans- 
planting, 21. 



self-sowing plants, 4; seeds, 6. 

September garden operations, 
94. 

shrubs, 4 ; flowering, 41. 

Snapdragon, 81. 

soil, autumn working of, 10; 
classification of, 7 ; composi- 
tion of, 30; deep, 8; fertiliz- 
ing, 29; light, 8; modified, 8; 
moisture in, 26; require- 
ments, 29 ; for seedlings, 21 ; 
sweetening, 32; test, 9; 
weathering, 9. 

sowing, 15, 16, 19, 24; indoors, 
3, 16; outdoors, 3, 4, 16, 17; 
perennials, 93; for late vege- 
tables, 91. 

Spirea, 41. 

spraying, 53, 89; apparatus, 56, 

State Agricultural Experiment 

Stations, 35. 
Stevia, 82. 
Sunflower, 90. 
Sweet Peas, 88, 93, 99. 
Syringa, 41. 

table, flower-planting, 68, 69; 

vegetable-planting, 74, 75, 76. 
tender annuals, 4; biennials, 4; 

perennials, 3, 4, 94. 
tillage, 26. 

tools, garden, 25, 2"], 61. 
trailers, 5. 
training, zi- 
transplanting, 6, 19, 88 ; orchard 

trees, 86; perennials, 94; 

seedlings, 21. 
tree-planting, 87, 99. 
trees, 4. 

trimming, 38, 39. 
Tulip, 102. 

vegetable-gardening, 71; seeds, 
83 ; planting-tables, 74, 75, 7^. 
Verbena, 81. 



117 



Viburnum, 42. 

vines, 5 ; tying up, 84. 

watering, amount of, 18; ex- 
cess, 17; seedings, 22. 



weeds, 25, 61. 
Weigela, 42. 
window-boxes, 89. 
"winter plant-effects, 80; protec- 
tion, 5, 94. 



1& 



r'"Y 111 is'''^ 



One copy del. to Cat. Div. 



m'i . liij 



If" 



